I'm from the London Hackspace, a maker community in the UK. We're looking for a CNC mill to go in our hackspace, and something has come up on ebay that's very tempting.
It's a Bridgeport Series II CNC:
CNC MILLLING MACHINE BRIDGEPORT SERIES II COMPLETE WITH TOOLING SHOWN | eBay
The z-axis is not functioning but that seems to be an electronics issue - I'm hoping not expensive to fix.
How much should we be willing to spend on this thing? Some people seem to say they have only scrap iron value like $1000 or something.
I'm scared how much it might cost to sort this thing out. We don't mind putting time into it, and have lots of electronics experience - but as hobbyists not commercial grade CNC machine specialists.
How much would it cost to substitute new electronics if that was necessary? How much to convert it to be driven by a PC?
We only need hobbyist grade functionality, not production speeds.
The professional CNC retrofit kits for Bridgeports seem to cost more than $10,000 - this kind of money is way way way out of our budget.
We couldn't spend more than $1000 bringing it into good working order.
Any advice much appreciated - auction ends very soon!
It's a Bridgeport Series II CNC:
CNC MILLLING MACHINE BRIDGEPORT SERIES II COMPLETE WITH TOOLING SHOWN | eBay
The z-axis is not functioning but that seems to be an electronics issue - I'm hoping not expensive to fix.
How much should we be willing to spend on this thing? Some people seem to say they have only scrap iron value like $1000 or something.
I'm scared how much it might cost to sort this thing out. We don't mind putting time into it, and have lots of electronics experience - but as hobbyists not commercial grade CNC machine specialists.
How much would it cost to substitute new electronics if that was necessary? How much to convert it to be driven by a PC?
We only need hobbyist grade functionality, not production speeds.
The professional CNC retrofit kits for Bridgeports seem to cost more than $10,000 - this kind of money is way way way out of our budget.
We couldn't spend more than $1000 bringing it into good working order.
Any advice much appreciated - auction ends very soon!