Craftex milling machine cx650

[JustaDB]

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[boilerhouse]

 

[little ol' e]

Anyone know if these little buggers can push a 1" fly cutter, 4 effective indexable, a good chip breaker insert, with a .03 DOC after the plastic gears are removed ?
What about a 1/2" -5/8 4 flute carbide endmill with a .05 DOC?
Material would be mostly 1018 with the odd block of 4140.
Mostly squaring blocks with some keys added.
Thanks

 

[YYCHM]

It's a CX605. Specs are here https://www.busybeetools.com/products/milling-machine-mini-craftex-csa-cx605.html

 

[little ol' e]

Appreciate the link. Thanks

 

[darrin1200]

I can’t speak to its abilities. For me, $240 is not enough to offset gas, time, warranty and size. If it was down the street from me, I would maybe consider it.
After a discussion with SWMBO, I’ve decided to save my pennies for a CX600. I think it’s a good balance, for me, with size, cost and sturdiness. Hopefully a used one will come up for a good price. I missed one last fall at an excellent price.
Good luck with the search.

 

[Former Member]

Anyone know if these little buggers can push a 1" fly cutter, 4 effective indexable, a good chip breaker insert, with a .03 DOC after the plastic gears are removed ?
What about a 1/2" -5/8 4 flute carbide endmill with a .05 DOC?
Material would be mostly 1018 with the odd block of 4140.
Mostly squaring blocks with some keys added.
Thanks

It all depends on feed rate. Would I get that aggressive, likely not as you'll likely have more issues with not having enough HP.

I'd likely take shallower but faster feeds to keep the load low on the equipment but high enough on the cutters to achieve good results.

With light duty machines it is always a balance between strength, power and size/speed of cut.

 

[VicHobbyGuy]

It's a CX605. Specs are here https://www.busybeetools.com/products/milling-machine-mini-craftex-csa-cx605.html

Exactly.
It's the BusyBee branded Sieg X2 mini-mill. The same machine (with possibly varying levels of Quality Control & Inspection) is sold by Grizzly & Harbor Freight. The X2 is the most basic of the Sieg mills. See LittleMachineShop for comparisons between models. There's a lot of info on the internet about the Sieg mills - they are the 'matching tool' to a Sieg or RealBull 7x lathe, with similar problems and capabilities- a 'kit' with lots of room for improvement. If you have the space, something bigger would be a better bet, IMO, unless your primary interest was small work. And, as @darrin1200 says, the asking price isn't low enough IMO to forego the warranty.

 

[little ol' e]

Hey thanks guys.
I had a look at what busy bee has to offer from the link above. I was thinking about getting an inexpensive machine to square up about 620 blocks with some keyways .
The mounting holes and 3D shape would be done on the CNC afterwards.
I figured for 1k a guy could be busy for a little while before jumping into the CNC dept., then I'd just scrap the machine if it was done by that point.
However, looks like the busy bee offerings just wouldn't make the cut this time around. I don't have room on that side of the shop for anything larger like another Fortworth, 1st or Bridgeport. I can sub these blocks out for now, so its not a big deal at the moment.
Thanks for the input !