I would say that I really don’t have a preference. I use mainly imperial because I’m American and it’s what my brain is trained to think in, but the cam software does all of the thinking for me anyway so it truly doesn’t make a big difference to me. I have a handful of metric endmills because they were what I had available or in a certain geometry (like dovetail cutters) they fit my needs more but overall I would use either.

@@mpmachining7227 thank you for the feedback. I just order the PM30 and starting to source all the little pieces. Any recommendations on places online for end mills?

@@TheAnt0906 lakeshore carbide is great. Carl (the owner) is a very helpful and responsive person if you have questions or issues getting a tool to run well. Harvey is also really good as is Maritool. All 3 of them you can order directly from so you don’t need a tooling rep

@@mpmachining7227I pick up this mill for gunsmith. I’m fairly new to CNC, what bit should I start off with? I will be doing mostly optic cuts and 1911 tri top cuts

@@TheAnt0906 for the PM30 with a fairy low Hp spindle, I would recommend going with a short flute length 4 or 5 flute 1/4” or 3/8” endmill (or similar metric size) that is AlTiN coated and meant for cutting steel

It is about 550mm in the base alone. As for weight, I actually have no idea in my current setup. I have added a ton of weight to the machine with all of my upgrades with no real way to measure it now.

Still running the machine with significant upgrades since this video. Absolutely loving it

@@mpmachining7227 thanks for the reply. I have wanted a milling machine for a couple years. Since J found the firm in Taiwan that make Precision Mathews machines. I was talking about buying one and they said milling machines can only use max 30mm tool. Speed for milling steel max 400rpm and cut depth 2.5mm. I dont think thats awful. Seems like your machine is doing fine.

@@mpmachining7227 The machine I am considering is the pm833tv as they make it in this Taiwan factory. Also theres mention of cnc conversion kit for it on the precision mathews website. Strangely though the firm have not replied to my emails. I hope they are still in business.

I would highly recommend double checking for your own dimensions to ensure you don't inadvertently cut into the safety plunger hole or rear dovetail, but we have been using 0.658"

@@mpmachining7227 perfect, thanks!

I'm not sure what it was set at for this video because it was quite a long time ago. But the frrdd I use now are for 5 strepovers for the cutting padded then a total of 4 spring passes. It is definitely excessive and I could absolutely dial it up to fewer passes but there is some very noticeable deflection with this small of a tool and I prefer reliable threading over speed. As it is the total toolpaths only takes about a minute and a half for the 2 holes and I get hundreds of threads until it's time to replace the treadmill.

@@mpmachining7227 I’m with you on that. I did some 4-40 threads for xometry test part and did 3 spring passes. Good stuff here thanks for sharing.

What actually limits the depth of the optic cut is the right hand (extractor side) thread depth. As it is, you only have about 0.12" of depth you can get that thread to go down until it hits the extractor plunger channel. So if you made the optic cut much deeper, there would no longer be enough depth to get good thread engagement.

Got it, thanks for the explanation.

We can definitely get you squared away. A few questions to figure out what the problem might be. First, what software are you using? EZCad2 I'm guessing? What settings are you using to engrave? (Power, speed, frequency, hatch settings and number of passes) Next, what size lens are you using? Not sure what it shipped with default, I'm guessing a 120mm or a 150mm came stock but you could have swapped that which makes a big difference on power output. Lastly and where in guessing a problem might be for you. What are you using to determine and set your focal length? If you don't have your focal length dialed down to within about 0.05", you will drastically lose power of removing material. And just to make sure I'm on the same page for what you're looking for, what depth are you actually looking to achieve and in what material?

@@mpmachining7227 light burn

@mpmachining7227 I watch everybody's videos that pretty much have the same fifty watt laser as me and they are doing deep engraving. I know this thing isn't going to cut through a 1/2 inch of metal,but I see them engraving at least an 1/8 to a quarter inch. I mean mine just scratches the damn surface. I'm wondering if my machine is faulty. I hate to bother you I just can't get no answers from anybody. And trying to get ahold of cloud ray the company is just a nightmare.

I would just appreciate any knowledge at all or if you can send me in the right path to try and figure this out I'd highly appreciate it.

@@mpmachining7227 I've tried increasing the power. , decreasing the power,increasing the frequency,decreasing the frequency messing with the speeds and it just doesn't want to do what I see everybody else doing.

Also, working out this sturdy wall bracket to bolt the top of the column to the cinder block wall, and bolt the lower base for increased rigidity.

@@markhall3434 that is something I absolutely wish I had done. The column is by far the weak link in the whole system. You will have to make sure you don't induce any z axis errors in squareness when you tighten it to the wall but that will do wonders for stiffness

No problem at all with the questions. To answer the torque question first. I have had no problem at all with the motor for the cuts I take. Considering I have the machine converted to CNC, I rarely use traditional manual machining strategies like using large cutters at low rpm with large stepovers and very slow speeds. I'm typically cutting in the range of 500-800SFM in steels and stainless using high speed machining toolpaths. I use a 3" facemill fairly often and the machine has no problem pushing that down to 1200RPM where I typically run it. The rigidity of the machine is way more limiting than spindle power or torque. As for rigid tapping, that's unfortunately not something I can speak to. I have made thousands of threaded holes on the machine and all but a dozen or so were done with threadmills rather than taps. I do have a floating tap holder (my machine isn't set up to do rigid tapping because I never set up a tachometer to input to my control). Overall, it's going to be night and day better than the CNC Depot spindles if what you're looking for is torque and ability to run at lower speeds. For the timing pulley, it is louder than a v belt but a complete solution to any potential loss of torque transfer or slip. The motor I bought I don't believe is available directly from the same place I ordered it years ago but there are plenty of places available to buy it from.

@@mpmachining7227 Thanks for the info. I think i'll go with a Teknic 4hp AC servo, digital phase converter and a spindle pulley upgrade, although i'm worried about weight on this weak column even using a counter balance pulley system on linear rails. What runout are you getting at the spindle taper after the bearing upgrades? I'm debating on keeping the R8 spindle or upgrading to the Tormach BT30 spindle, however i cant find any info on the Tormach BT30 spindle for dimensions. How often are you having to repack the bearings and what kind of heat buildup are you seeing after running the spindle all day? What type of timing pulleys did you use? I was looking at GT3 with 9mm width.

@@mathis.manufacturing I haven't repacked my bearings since I did the upgrade and even running continuously at 10k there is no real heat buildup in the spindle. Still what I would call warm to the touch but I haven't had reason to take a measurement of the temp. For runout, I'm getting 0.0002" pretty consistently on the spindle taper using a Bestest 0.0001" indicator. I have exclusively been using the tormach TTS system as the height repeatability of an R8 taper was absolutely awful in my experience even torquing the drawbar every time. I use a decent amount of ER25 tormach genuine and some eBay knock off TTS holders and even on the ER taper I'm getting 0.0002". For the column rigidity, I added about 100lbs to mine and with the air strut counterweight I'm usually it's not a problem at all.

The machine has been incredibly reliable and solid. It gets used probably 20 hours a week and I have zero complaints at all. Reach out on our email if you have questions along the way and we would be happy to lend a hand (no need for payment, this machine wouldn't have gotten to where it is without people helping me, I'd be more than happy to pay it forward)

Stefan, I made the head spaced out of aluminum and it has been working great! I would highly recommend it

Sounds great, much easier to machine, I'm also going to do the spindle upgrade however I have a ISO30 spindle so I will tear it down to se if your bearing recepi will wor or if I have to make my own cooking ;) Thank youy for answering so promt! @@mpmachining7227

Unfortunately even this 50W laser really isn’t meant for cutting. You could eventually get through 14g mild steel with the right settings but it would take an extreme amount of time and really just wouldn’t be worth it in my opinion. It works amazing for engraving though

I get this comment fairly often. I'm going to quote one of my responses to another comment but I really should make a separate video about it. I'll give you my $0.02 on the topic. The pockets I machine for every red dot are as close to "perfect" as I can achieve within the limits of my machine. You can often install your red dot (with no screws) and shake the slide all around without the dot moving anywhere. Doing it that way will make sure that any and all forces that go into the red dot (if for example you wanted to rack your slide from your dot or the optic got smashed on something) transmit directly into the slide and absolutely none of the force is being taken up by the mounting hardware. That is about as secure as physically possible in my humble opinion. Often (almost always in fact) when a red dot pocket is machined with posts, the dot does not contact the posts at all. If the posts are machined to such a tight fit that they actually contact the holes in the optic, it almost always requires that the pocket be machined oversized so that contact on the front and back face do not overconstrain the pocket. In that case, rather than all of the force from an impact being directed into the slide through the full surface contact in the front and rear of the optic, it is now transfered into the slide by the small and thin walled bosses. This is still more than secure enough, but in my opinion, a much less rigid setup than a perfectly fitting pocket. I also have seen plenty of companies machine pockets that are a perfect fit with undersized bosses as to not overconstrain the pocket. In this case, the bosses provide no extra rigidity and just change the length of hardware required. This is all just my experience and opinion, but after machining them both ways (I still offer both), I am 100% convinced that the bosses are a waste of machining time and no more rigid.

yea i am new to these rmr slides and i recently got one from rival arms which actually has the two front posts that are half circles with the rmr optic 1mm overhang each side but is very tight in the seat. I appreciate the knowledge on this as i am very new to these and have wondered about these posts but i see the seat fit is so tight the posts are not needed and if they are used its just not a good fit for the wide range of rmr optics.A vid on it would be nice i'd watch it but i get the gist.thank you. subbed@@mpmachining7227

We actually do not use the mounting posts on our cuts. Those posts were originally designed as recoil absorbing posts when optics were flush mounted to a slide using a plate. During recoil, the lateral forces of the recoil would all transfer into the mounting screws as the optic itself was not constrained in any way on a surface mounted plate. The recoil posts gave the optic something to act against to prevent sheering the mounting screws. In our case (and most cases for modern mounting options), the optic is mounted making firm contact in both the front and rear of the red dot with the slide. This completely eliminates the need for recoil posts as they would serve no function. There are still companies out there that choose to incorporate the posts into their direct milling but they really do not serve any purpose. Hope that answers your question!

perhaps turn up the speed, and down the feed i think thatll also do the trick.

Thank you for the information! I have been debating a 100W MOPA for a long time but I'll definitely have to weigh that into the decision making.

Absolutely. We do work on M&P slides all the time. What did you have in mind?

@@mpmachining7227 I need a red dot 🔴 put on my M&P, but I don’t want to wait up till 8 weeks turnaround time.

@@my3sons386 reach out to us at [email protected] and we will get you squared away. Our lead time for optic cuts is about a week currently

The holes were drilled on the machine and threadmilled on it also. It's been a long time since I have watched this video but I may not have filmed all of the passes so the holes may have looked threaded beforehand. There are a few reasons I prefer threadmilling over tapping the holes. Some of them are the fact that the holes are so shallow that an unformed thread or two at the bottom of a hole would make a big difference in these holes, taps breaking are a bit of a nightmare on these slides and it allows me to control the fit of the threads. Send me an email and I'll gladly shoot over the drawing for an RMR

For that bearing I needed a hole that was more circular than my mill could interpolate at the time. With the open loop steeper motors I was using to drive the axis in this video (I later did some significant upgrades on the mill that fixed this) I would always get roughly 0.001” of deviation in a whole. With the hole being 0.001” out of round I was worried that I would ruin the press fit I was going for so I opted for a boring bar. As for positional accuracy, the method I used to switch to the boring bar then center over the whole still gave me the same positional accuracy as if I used the endmill I used for the other holes. I used the machine to drive to center on that hole so either way I was limited by the accuracy of the machine

For the time being we don't offer any optic cuts for a 1911. The slide is too narrow to accept a direct mounted optic (the screw holes on the optic are wider than the slide is) and we aren't offering any plate system to do the mounting.

I don't have your email. Did you include it on here somewhere?

I certainly don't mind helping I'm just not sure how cost effective it would be for you to ship the whole head of the mill here and back. It is about 3 hours of work to do and I certainly don't mind walking you through the steps in more detail than this video. But if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself im sure we can work something out and I can take care of it for you

I appreciate the kind words! Everything is great over here and I'm doing well. The mill has been up and running since I stopped filming and it is doing amazing. I ended up just getting to the point where it was taking too much time to finish the upgrades and film videos then my workload got so high when the machine came back to life it just wasn't in the cards to keep filming videos. I have been meaning to do an update video at least showing how great the machine is running. I have been debating if I want to film a few shorter videos or one long full update video.

The machine started out as a Precision Matthews PM30MV and I converted it to CNC. The machine has been heavily upgraded since this video also

A couple of questions before I start trying to recommend anything to you. First, what is your primary goal for marking? For the 400 series stainless and the Ti, were you looking to achieve any colored markings or are you strictly trying to deep engrave everything? Also, is time a big factor for you? Do you care if the engraving takes a bit longer or are you going for as fast as possible?

@@mpmachining7227 just engraving. Time is money, but not looking to invest in something where the gains are relegated to the the point past acceptable standards. That is to say diminishing returns.

@@ahole5407 ok, if you aren't looking for colored engraving then you rea) and don't have a need for a MOPA or JPT source which would save you some money. My laser is a Raycus 50W source that I got from eBay (the seller I got mine from is no longer in business) and it came with the 4th axis. The important things to look for are that the machine is compatible with EZCad2 and that the power source is Raycus. This will give you a frequency range between roughly 20-80 or 20-100kHz. As far as an actual name brand goes, it's extremely hard to say. Most of the machines are made in the same one or two factories in China then imported here and either rebranded or just sold as is. The difference in price can vary widely for the exact same machine based on each seller. There are some American based companies that import the machines then do some initial QC checks on the machines and resell them for a higher price but with the piece of mind that you're actually going to get what you paid for (Cloudray Lasers, Wisely and OM Tech come to mind). A major thing that I have heard people have issues with is customs clearing the laser so an important selling point for me was that the machine was already in the US. My machine came from China but when I purchased it, it was sitting at a warehouse in China. You can just search through eBay for 50W Raycus laser and sort by location if that's something you are worried about. From there, I would just send some sellers a few emails asking questions. If they don't respond to you, or can't speak English you may want to just pass on the laser. Not that there is anything wrong with a company from China that doesn't speak English, but it makes customer service a real nightmare if you had any issues.

I'll have to dig it up to find the bolt hole pattern. Unfortunately the original motor is very small compared to any aftermarket motor you would likely install on the machine

@@mpmachining7227 Yeah, my biggest concern is definitely going too large. Most of the 1500W BLDC's I've seen are a 110mm frame so I'm hoping the stock PM-30 motor is close to that. Even if I only go to a 3HP motor with a 130mm frame that will allow me to overdrive the spindle a bit without a significant power loss and still be able to squeeze in the drawbar setup. Worst case scenario is I maybe have to offset the motor to one side.

It worked great especially with cutting the casting to give me more Y travel (I'm at 10" of Y now). Send me an email at [email protected] and I can send you over the full fusion file of the spacer if you'd like

They certainly can be. The level of the machine can have a huge impact on tram and obviously what they did at the shop before it showed up will be different than how you level it at home. I'm almost wondering if they expect people to retram the machines when they get them so they only put minimal effort into them to possibly save money? Either way it's a fixable problem I just certainly wish we didn't have to fix it

Unfortunately we aren't allowed to advertise prices on KZbin due to their policies but if you send us an email at [email protected] we can get you squared away

Absolutely. Send us an email at [email protected] and we can get you taken care of

I would say that the only thing that even compares would be a used Tormach 1100MX (if you can find it). That has the closest work envelope/rigidity to my machine with servos on all axis. You are still going to be an order of magnitude lower on the spindle power front with my machine having about 3x the HP and torque as one of those machines. That being said, you would be hard pressed to get an 1100MX comparably fitted to my mill for under $25k which is roughly 3x what I paid to build my own machine. Obviously what you get for that extra money is a machine with a lot more refined enclosure and design as well as the customer support that comes with a tormach but you are absolutely going to be lacking in the power I was able to achieve. The next machine that I think I would look at is the new MR-1 that I see being advertised all over right now. It is more of a router gantry design than a mill and slightly less powerful than the Tormach but they seem to have hit a great price point and the demos look promising. Unfortunately, the machine is still in the production phase and I don't believe they have actually shipped a unit yet so there are still a lot of variables with that machine.

@@mpmachining7227 so your project worked out to a bout 1/3 of the price and still have higher torque output, than the closest physically comparable production Mill.. daaaaaaamn, hats off to you. The MR1, with 3.4hp and about $6k - $8k (near fully outfitted) still seems to have your project as the value winner

Unfortunately I think you would be extremely disappointed with a 20 or 30w laser if your goal is to get that depth. Even my 50W would struggle to get up to 1/8" depth in a reasonable amount of time on a larger part than the hole in this video but it certainly could do it. With most of the fiber lasers the real question becomes how much time do you want to spend when it comes to depth. With a little bit of compressed air blowing the ablated material out and manually adjusting the focus as the laser goes, you can achieve some really deep marks. But at a certain point it just becomes cumbersome to do. If your main purpose for the laser is to engrave to that depth, a 50W laser at minimum is what I would recommend, with a 100W being much closer to what you would actually need.

@@mpmachining7227 Thanks I checked the depth has to be 3mm, Im trying to find a way to engrave without breaking the bank.. Again thanks for your time