Mill or Router

[machtek]

Hi all, as some of you know, I am a long time mill-lathe guy and now have a router (thermwood 45) in my shop. My question is, should I stay with Mill or purchaser router. I think after reading some posts about router that it has some nesting options that mill may not. I had hoped to get some insight on the two from someone who has some real experience.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Dennis

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

You can add nesting to your mill seat.

 

My customers that have both mills and routers (machines)have one or the other mastercam product that is used to program both.

[machtek]

Thanks for the response, Is that the only difference in the two products?

 

Thanks

Dennis

[Ployd]

We use Mill with our Quintax Router. We have a customer that sends files to us where the parts our nested, but they handle it on their end.

[machtek]

Johnny, I mean Jimmy can you weigh in on this a little more in depth?

 

Are there any other functions available in router that I will miss if I stay with Mill.

 

Thanks

Dennis

[Tom Dorgan from American Precision]

I believe there are functions and possibly a couple of toolpaths in Router that are not in Mill. I may be wrong with the newer versions since I only sell Router products and it has been awhile since I was around Mill only license.

[Jamie Betz from InterTech Supplies]

I have used both Mill & Router and depending on the types of applications you are doing Mill will be just fine. If you need to nest and you do stay with Mill and want to add the nesting option it can get a little pricey. I asked our retailer about it a few months back but I can't remember the price but I am thinking it was in the $2500 range(I could be way off though). We have 5 seats of Mill and 3 seats of router here, the 3 seats were converted from Mill due to some functionality for using right angle aggregates that was thought to be exclusive to Router and I later learned that it was not.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

In router you get blockdrill and I think aggregate tooling is easier to deal with. If you dont need those I'd stick with mill so that all my machine.defs were of one kind and therefore easier to move parts from one to the other.

[machtek]

Thanks for the responses.

 

Can anyone define "blockdrill"

 

Thanks

Dennis

[Mike Gates from Barefoot CNC]

Block drill is a bank of preset sized drills usually in an L shape on 32mm center fron each other that are dropped down as needed for drilling specified holes. They are used for doing shelf pin holes in end panels for adjustable shelves that are 32mm apart usually. By using the block drill it looks at the holes and figures out which drills to drop to process the drilling of the shelf pin holes for the fastest cycle time. In a 11 hole line it will bore 5 at a time twice, then lift 4 of the 5 and only drill the last 1.

[Mike Gates from Barefoot CNC]

Here is a screen shot of a drill block laying on it's side so you can see it. If you go to Mastercam.com look at the X2 Router section you should see this section on block drilling.

 

[machtek]

Thank you for that Mike.

 

Dennis