Mill
From Combat Robot
A mill is an advanced machine used to cut stock material to a useable shape and size. It uses a rotating bit to cut wood, metal, and plastics. A set of square ways, and a leadscrew system helps accurately place cuts on a part- sometimes to the thousandths of an inch, depending upon the mill's make, calibration, and upkeep.
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Types of Mills
- Vertical Mills are the most basic type- they usually have a cast-iron body, and precision-ground ways along he X axis and the Y axis, with a dovetailed column along the Z axis holding up the head of the machine, which usually has the motor and spindle, which are what connect to and drive the endmill, or another cutting tool.
- a Manual Mill is a mill which has nothing powered save for the cutting tool itself. Some features of the manual mill are hand-wheels at the end of the X and Y axes, and a drill press-like crank of 3-5 handles on the side of the head serving to raise or lower it.
- a CNC Mill usually comes in a few flavors: conversion and built-for-CNC. A converted CNC mill usually tries to retain use of the handwheels and handles to position the axes, while at the same time using stepper motors to move them under the control of a computer and G-Code. A built-for-CNC mill usually comes with all the bells and whistles of a conversion already built-in, and motor controllers and drivers built-in, and usually a manual input screen for simple operations.
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