RobotWars101

Hi All. I have been looking at one of these for a while.
I have used this company alot for the last 7 years and am a global moderator on their forums.But I have not had anything to do with this though.
I was wondering what people with more knowledge than me thought of it??
Many thanks, Jim.

http://lumenlab.com/d/micro

Hi Jim

That looks like a really nice little machine. The price seems very reasonable too. I am still learning what my machine can do, but the potential of cnc is awesome.

The spindle speed going up to 22k is a really nice, as your feed rates can be much higher with a smaller cutter giving faster parts. The accuracy is good as well, but I don't see any mention of backlash removal on the machine, although that doesn't mean its not there. The only thing I have noticed is that the lead screws and slides are not covered, meaning swarf can get in. Adding some belows would be good to stop any damage.

The problem with all small machines is they aren't very rigid in comparison to machines that weigh hundreds of kgs. But if you cut metal parts out slowly to avoid machine flex you should be able to make some very nice parts. Lots to learn with cnc machines, and the tooling costs add up. The best advice I can give is to get a really good milling vice and a dti.

Thats great,thanks Andrew.Much appreciated input.
They have some very good forums ironing out any problems.
They have even used it for 3d printing,although,having seen the end result,I think it needs a bit more work.

2 stepper motors on 1 axis is uneccesary and impractical. easiest just to go for 1 larger motor as 2 motors have to be perfectly in tune with eachother other wise the accuracy will be out of the window. the robot claims a very high accuracy but this could be skewed if one of the stepper motors goes out of alignment with the other motor/ misses steps

Good point,Jonny. I hadn't considered that.