A guide to buying your first CNC milling machine

CNC (Computer Numerical Control) is the computer control of machine tools like mills, grinders, routers, and lathes. Investing in CNC milling machine requires some research and understanding as it can be such a complex machine, especially for first-time buyers.CNC milling machine
 

Luckily, TAICNC is here to guide you through what to keep in mind when shopping for your first CNC machine.

So you want to buy a CNC mill, hello everyone and welcome back to add man TAICNC. Today we're going to start a series of videos on how to purchase a CNC mill. What are the things that you need to think about and consider when you're purchasing a machine like this? The number one thing that you need to consider is your budget. You need to define your budget ahead of time and stay in your budget. Not only that, you need to make sure that you budget for everything, not just the cost of the machine.

So we need to account for things like not only buying the machine but getting the machine to the location. We're going to use it at installing the machine, hooking up the machine. And then also any accessories that machine is gonna need. Tool holders work, holding coolant and possibly repairs for that machine. If you buy a used vertical machining center, you may need to do some extensive repairs on it. It all depends on what kind of machine you're gonna buy after our budget. We need to specify our machine.

We want to be able to buy the best machine that we can get with our budget after we specify a machine. If we can't find a machine that fits in our budget, then maybe we need to recircle back and reevaluate either our budget or if the size of the machine we specified is a lot of a need. So what do we have to consider when specifying our machine? The very first thing we have to consider is what kind of parts are we going to make? How big are the parts?

How many of them do we need to make? And how fast do we need to make them? So let's go over to the machine and talk about some of the aspects for making the parts in the machine. When we're trying to specify the machine. The first thing that we need to look at is our travel, primarily the X-axis and Y-axis are what most people are concerned about. Z-axis is also a concern because we have to make sure that we can machine as tall as our parts are, plus the length of our tooling.

First, you need to understand the type of work used for CNC machines, which may be the manufacture of metal parts, moulds or personal preferences. This is important as different machines can handle different grades of material. The machine you choose will also depend on your production needs such as:

• Size of your workplace and frequency of utilisation: Massive production may require industrial-grade milling equipment, whereas scaled-down manufacturing operates can use a commercial quality milling machine.
• Speed: Getting the job done quickly translates to increased production. But, sometimes a slower CNC machine means more accuracy, not to mention it comes at a lower cost.
• The amount of precision needed: There’s a huge price difference in a CNC milling machine that provides a tolerance of .0001 and one that provides .001.

Choosing the right CNC machine depends on your actual machining needs. Usually, we recommend the right CNC machine for the customer according to the size of the part that the customer needs to machine, the material of the workpiece, the accuracy requirements, and the required output per hour.

The cost of CNC mill is closely related to its configuration. Although sometimes you will see that the CNC mill looks almost the same, the implementation of the function is the same, but the price difference is also very large according to different configurations, profit the CNC controller we are familiar with.

• Small CNC mill price range $10k-30k
• Standard CNC mill price range $45K-70k
• Large CNC mill price range $90-120k
• 5-axis CNC mill price range $150K-300k

These are just rough calculations. The price of different sizes of CNC machines varies from brand to brand. When choosing a CNC machine, we should consider our actual manufacturing needs more.

In addition to the machine itself, you'll need to purchase a computer-aided design (CAD) software package in order to create the designs. Those usually run anywhere from $2,000 to $15,000. Training usually costs anywhere from $200 to $500 per day.

Depending on the knowledge level of your staff, the process could take a few hours or several days. The installation also tends to run $200 to $500 per day. Shipping starts at several hundred dollars and can cost up to $2,000.Some dealers offer packages that bundle the cost of the machine, training, shipping, and installation. So be sure to ask if a package like that is available before deciding on your purchase.

CNC milling machines can be divided into the following categories:

• Desktop CNC milling machine
• Small CNC milling machine
• 3-axis CNC milling machine
• 4-axis CNC milling machine
• 5-axis CNC milling machine
• Horizontal CNC milling machine
• Double column CNC milling machine

1. Consult: we will recommend the most suitable CNC milling machines to you after being informed by your requirements, such as the material you want to carve, the max size of the material (Length x Width x Thickness).
2.  Quotation: We will offer to you with our detail quotation according to our consulted CNC machines, with high quality and the affordable CNC machine price.
3. Process Evaluation: Both sides carefully evaluate and discuss all the details of the order to exclude any misunderstanding.
4. Placing Order: If there is no doubt, we will send you the PI (Proforma Invoice), and then we will sign a contract with you.
5. Production: We will arrange the production as soon as receiving your signed sales contract and deposit. The latest news about production will be updated and informed to the buyer during the production.
6. Inspection: The whole production procedure will be under regular inspection and strict quality control. The complete CNC machine will be tested to make sure they can work very well before out of the factory. 
7. Delivery: We will arrange the delivery as the terms in the contract after the confirmation by the buyer.
8. Custom Clearance: We will supply and deliver all the necessary shipping documents to the buyer and ensure a smooth customs clearance.
9. Support and Service: We will offer professional technical support and CNC machine service by Phone, Email, Skype, WhatsApp around the clock. 

The TAICNC machine is easy to install and has good stability. However, if there is a problem, TAICNC will provide you with fast, appropriate CNC service and after-sales service for CNC repair. We are always on hand to provide you with a hotline service to correct interference through fast, qualified CNC service operations. Our English CNC engineering team provides Skype, video and telephone support for troubleshooting CNC machining centers