Hmmm.......

Make it a little bigger with a built in drip pan allowing for removable spoil board / metal bed.
May as well add ability for a future plasma capability!

RICH

LOL, having seen what it does now, I would never want to mix plasma with any sort of other machine Two totally different beasts here - plasma needs massive acceleration and speeds unto around 9000mm/min (45A system) and machining needs more rigidity at the expense of speed and acceleration.

Cutting figures -
3mm single flute tool,
5000 series aluminium,
1mm depth of cut,
Pocket milling ( a hard task),
10,000 rpm,
323mm/min cut speed - way lower than plasma
Cutting force - 8Nm - plasma would be zero (unless you like torch diving )

So there is no comparison really apart from both being CNC.

Drip pan is a good idea to allow for some sort of coolant, spoil board can be simply mounted on whatever rigid bed is used.

Bridgeport would be a better route if intending to do metals only but if wanting to do wood then I would think a gantry style router would be the best option. It would also be able to do non-ferrous metals if built rigid enough  but wouldn't be much use at steels/stainless etc.

Regarding the feeds and speeds you quoted, seems slow to me, I never use single flute cutters but even using one I would be expecting double that feedrate at least and much bigger DOC as well, then again it all boils down to the rigidity of the machine I suppose.


Hood

dont dismiss the cheap stuff.  Flimsy but a great way to learn cnc and a platform to build/rebuild from.

direct answer to your thread title/question - I wouldn't really regard any of those you list as mills. They're all routers really whatever their quality or lack of.

I saw a comment once on the uk site which I think sums things up quite well. It went something like: "Any router will eventually scratch its way through ally - that's not to be confused with milling though".

^  Ok, so I totally LOVE THAT QUOTE!

Bridgeport would be a better route if intending to do metals only but if wanting to do wood then I would think a gantry style router would be the best option. It would also be able to do non-ferrous metals if built rigid enough  but wouldn't be much use at steels/stainless etc.

Regarding the feeds and speeds you quoted, seems slow to me, I never use single flute cutters but even using one I would be expecting double that feedrate at least and much bigger DOC as well, then again it all boils down to the rigidity of the machine I suppose.


Hood

BP would get in a tizzy trying to get up to wood speeds i think Also dries all the oil out of the ways

The cut speeds i quoted, in my ignorance, taken direct from an online CNC speed/feed calculator so I won't say correct or not.

dont dismiss the cheap stuff.  Flimsy but a great way to learn cnc and a platform to build/rebuild from.

I nearly bought one so I'm not dismissing them as such but after spending a whole day Sunday reading stuff on them, I think I can make a far better unit myself.

That last picture looks to be Alu maybe 5mm thick??
What sort of settings were you running there??

direct answer to your thread title/question - I wouldn't really regard any of those you list as mills. They're all routers really whatever their quality or lack of.

I saw a comment once on the uk site which I think sums things up quite well. It went something like: "Any router will eventually scratch its way through ally - that's not to be confused with milling though".

Yeah fair enough, mill is an exaggeration, multi-purpose machine maybe?

Like i mentioned earlier if you want a great do everything machine build a fixed gantry mill . It can do everything to a point.

(;-) TP