- CNC machined billet aluminium parts are ideal for motorsport, however outsourcing their
production does come with a pretty serious price tag and lead time.
We're here with Ron from Bantam Tools to talk about home based alternative options.
Thinking about the perspective of someone who has, a home hobbyist who's maybe designing
parts for their, a car that they're building, motorsport, performance automotive application
or even in a professional environment for someone creating custom parts for vehicles, they may be
designing parts in CAD and sending them off to be machined from billet aluminium at a machine
shop or maybe they're not designing themself but they have a files and they're getting machine
shops to do the work for them.
It's a fairly expensive process and task to get bilet machined parts and the machines that do them
are even more expensive.
Its seems like you have a bit of an alternative option here, can you explain what your
product is and a bit more about it?
- OK sure, at Bantam Tools we make desktop CNC machines for world changers and skill builders with
professional reliability and precision.
So what that is is a desktop CNC machine.
So whereas you're used to a large machine, small SUV size machines that are unattainable,
cost 10s of 1000s of dollars, we have a desktop option which is a, has a 20,000 RPM spindle,
a 3.5 x 7 x 9 work volume and with that machine, you can literally take your CAM, bring it into our
control software and it very intuitively walks you through the setup.
Walks you through tool touch off, walks you through your plan layout, your material setup
and you can then go ahead and mill your job.
So instead of sending out your idea or your part to a machine shop outside, you can quite literally
on your desktop take your idea and turn it into a reality.
- Yeah so we covered, you mentioned a few topics there like CAM and we'll come back to that in a minute
but I just wanted to touch on roughly the price and obviously that's going to be a big factor,
it's an expensive process to get something machined from billet.
Roughly what is the price of your machine?
- So our larger machine with the 3.5 x 7 x 9 work volume, that machine starts at $6500.
- And that's a three axis mill, is there any other options with that?
- Yeah with it we have a whole family of accessories and one of the most powerful
accessories that's unique in the desktop space is our fourth axis accessory and with that you
not only can do three axis milling, you have the fourth axis where you can rotate the part and
with that it really unlocks your ability to create whatever you can conceive of.
As long as it can be milled, we can do it out of aluminium on our desktop CNC.
- Yeah so that's one of the key things people hear, when you talk about a CNC mill is the number of
axes and maybe that's a little bit confusing to some people but it really opens up the amount
of flexibility you have in the design but maybe something that can be made on a five axis mill
can that still be made on something like that with different setups?
- Yeah if you do more setups, you can get more features built in, it just takes more of doing
different operations, different setups.
With the three axis, you'll get full X, Y, Z, you can get the fourth axis where you can
get the rotational in then if you have to add additional features you would have to do a
different setup.
- Yeah that makes sense.
So with the size envelope we're talking about a part that you could make in that that needs
to be machined usually on a four or five axis mill or a three axis mill with different setups.
If you send that to a machine shop to be made from billet aluminium, you're looking at at least
a few hundred dollars to maybe a few thousand dollars in some cases, that adds up pretty quick,
it's easy to see how that would possible pay for the machine as well?
- Yeah for sure, if you're able to take your part and your ID and turn it into reality without having
to go to the outside machine shop, you get two benefits.
One is you get to iterate right away, so you can make changes to your part without having to go
back and forth to the machine shop which gets very expensive each time you do it and if you're
doing low volume parts, you're going to pay for that machine shop to break down whatever they're
doing, set up a new job, so there'll be setup charges and yeah if you're, once you get to about seven or
eight parts, you're probably, I've already paid for the machine.
- Yeah so yeah those two things, the expense of actually getting a machine shop to do the
labour for you is going to pay for it and then also the flexibility to be able to do it yourself
and on your own time.
It's really important for someone who's developing parts.
In terms of the actual running costs of the machine once you own it, is there anything majorly
expensive there?
- No, one of our goals at Bantam Tools was to make CNC machining attainable and easy to use.
So our machine does not require any maintenance, other than we ask the users to be able to clean out
the chips that they make when they're machining so that the chips don't start to impact the movement
of the machine.
But there's no required lubrication or any of that so basically you get the machine, it comes fully
assembled out of the box, you can plug it in, download our software and you're ready to run.
It comes ready to go out of the box.
Low maintenance and easy to use.
- In terms of the cost for tooling in something like this, is that fairly expensive?
- No it uses an ER11 collet which is standard in the industry and our machine can take up to
a quarter inch shank diameter tooling and with that you could buy the tools from Bantam Tools
but there's nothing custom to the tools that means that you have to buy it from Bantam Tools.
So you can buy the tools from us or you can buy it from tool vendors anywhere.
- And I guess material cost is material cost and that will fluctuate depending on how things are
going on that end of things but what materials are you capable of machining with this?
- Yeah so amongst our supported materials, we've really optimised the machine for aluminium
prototyping but we've machined wood on it, all types of the engineering plastics like Delrin,
bronze, copper are amongst the supported materials.
- So if we talk about it from that perspective of quick prototyping, we start to look at flexible
manufacturing options, especially we're talking about materials, something like 3D printing,
what's the benefit of something like that over similar or even less price, a 3D printing solution
which can also make prototype parts, what's the benefit in having something like this over just a
3D printer?
- Yeah so one of the biggest benefits is most 3D printers in this price range are capable of printing
plastic.
With our machine you can actually make functional aluminium prototyping and I would say the other
benefit, unless you get a really high end 3D printer, is the ability for the machine to hold tolerance.
So the repeatability of our own machine is 1000th of an inch and we have people that make very high
precision prototype parts with our machine.
- And I guess not even prototype parts, just a real final finished product.
Aluminium is very useful on motorsport applications being so light and strong and we see it used a lot.
3D printers that can print thermoplastics, in close to this price range may be able to do
things like PEEK and carbon fibre blends but I guess there's still no replacement for the aluminium there?
- Yeah I would say aluminium, it will definitely give you all the properties you need and if you
need extra wear resistance, you can even get it anodised which also makes the part look great
and we've had a lot of people here come talk to us at SEMA about making custom parts out of
aluminium and it's very common in this industry.
And I mentioned prototyping but our machines are really optimised for custom one off parts.
Whether that's a prototype or making something to just look really cool.
- That makes a lot of sense, just moving on from that topic onto the actual process of using the
machine, if someone had modelled a part in CAD software, for example Fusion 360, Fusion 360 also
has CAM capability and for those who aren't aware, that's computer aided manufacturing.
Which is really the process of being able to produce a tool path from the CAD model to
control the machine.
What is the process from, is CAM in Fusion 360 something that can be used for your machine?
- Yeah absolutely, in fact we work really well with Fusion 360.
In Fusion 360, Autodesk has built into their manufacturing tab a selection where you can
select to post to the Bantam Tools desktop CNC machine so it is the most seamless way to work
with our machine is use Fusion 360, generate the CAM and Fusion 360 has done a great job of
making that CAM generation pretty simple and seamless and then you post that file, right from
Fusion 360 to the Bantam Tools desktop CNC machine and take that file, bring it into our software
and you're ready to go.
- And then from there once it's in your software, in terms of setting up for the machining process,
setting the home position and the zero points for the machine, what does that process looks like?
- OK so once, the machine, when you power it up, it asks you to home it so it knows where it is.
Once you load your tool in and you tell our software which tool you're using, it will go
put you through a tool touch off routine where the tool will come down and touch off on the bed
and you will know exactly where the tool cutting edge is and then you can use that same probing
routine to locate your stock so now the machine knows where your machining stock is.
So we make it really easy to do the tool touch off and the probing of the material.
- So is that just with capacitive material?
- Yeah so that is with capacitive material, for locating the stock.
If it's non conductive material, we have methods that are fairly simple to do it.
We have an L bracket where you can push your stock up against it, now you can locate our L
bracket and we'll know where the stock is and there are other industry known techniques such as using
a piece of paper, bringing it down and touching the tool until you can't move the piece of paper.
So there's ways to accomplish the task no matter what material you're using on the machine.
- Most people who are using CAM software with CAD software, with 3D models and controlling a big
five axis expensive machine, or any CNC milling machine for that matter, need to have a fairly
good understanding of the manufacturing process, so design for manufacturing is something we hear
often and being able to understand the manufacturing process and factor that into the design and the setup
so you don't damage the tool, is that something that you deal with a lot and is it common thing,
issues and mistakes you see?
- Yeah so one of the main purposes of our machine, other than making custom parts and prototype is
to do the skill building and that's to teach people the CNC machining which is a manufacturing process.
So if you learn that manufacturing process you will understand, or even if you're trying to make
a part on our desktop CNC, you're going to have to work through those issues on how to machine
that part and that's going to give you the design for manufacturing knowledge 'cause when you
realise what it takes to machine a feature or to clamp a feature or to have multiple setups
where maybe you can design the part so it only has one or two setups vs three or four setups.
That's where you get the design for manufacturing, where you can design your part such that it's easier
for you to manufacture and by working through the process with the desktop, you'll see where you
can really optimise design for manufacturing of your part by being able to see the best way to machine
a part and those ideas really come to life and come to the surface as you go through the process.
- So a great skill building tool for people looking to move into the industry in CNC machining and
make that a future.
- Yeah the machine is designed, it's accessible in terms of price, it's also designed to be easy
to use and it's designed to be able to help people learn the skill of CNC machining.
- Great well that's really good to hear, if people want to learn more about your product and
what you do, where can they get that information?
- Yeah you can contact us and look us up on our website at www.bantamtools.com
- Cool, thank you for your time.
- Thank you.
- If you liked that video make sure you give it a thumbs up
and if you're not already a subscriber, make sure you're subscribed.
We release a new video every week.
And if you like free stuff, we've got a great deal for you.
Click the link in the description to claim your free spot to our next live lesson.