Several reasons. One is I’m not sure if I could source the aluminum plate cheaper than what they are charging for the finished product. Even if I could I doubt I’d save that much. The next is I’m not sure I could maintain the tolerances required for the vise and fixturing to work correctly on this machine. I’m pretty sure they are making these plates on machines that are far more rigid and are capable of tighter tolerances. Then there’s also the screw up factor. Could I successfully bore and tap the dozens of holes needed? Maybe, but I’m not sure I could do all of it on the machine itself and hand tapping that many holes would take a decent amount of time with a high probability I’d mess up several of the holes.
I do get what you are saying. It’s much more satisfying to make something rather than buying it when you can, but in this case the pragmatic side of me sees the benefit to just buying it.
I didn’t notice anyone talking about these casters, but this is what I’m using. These specific ones are no longer available but there are a ton like them in design. They sit down on rubber feet and when you want to move the table you spin the middle and they come up. My HDM is on these and they’re great. Now I will admit it takes a minute to spin all 4, but my goal was only moveable as needed.
I’ve seen these on Amazon and have been tempted to use them for a few projects, but as yet I haven’t. Another much more low tech solution I had in mind was just to make some wooden blocks with some 1/4" rubber attached with contact cement. Then I’d just lift each corner with a pry bar and insert the blocks. Leveling could be done with shims, but my shop floor is pretty level so I doubt I’d need it.
These casters sit on the wheels in their up position. and when you spin the middle wheel, the rubber part lowers onto the ground. I have them screwed directly into 4x4 leg posts. For $50-60 bucks for a set of four and built for heavy duty weights, its a great solution. I’m not sure how using a crowbar with rubber feet makes the table moveable, but maybe I misunderstood your solution.
I also had zero experience similar to you with CNC except woodworking and it’s been such a neat hobby so far. You’ll never regret starting with the HDM. The ER 20 collet/spindle is amazing. Best of luck to you!
More like semi-mobile. I will mostly want the machine to be stationary with the infrequent option to move it away from the wall for cleaning, maintenance, etc. I’ve done this before with other benches and it’s a simple matter to pry the machine up 4 times and remove the blocks to make it mobile. I suspect it would be roughly as fast as resetting the casters with the other type. It might not be the best idea, but I thought it might be worth a try as I can always go with the better caster solution later.
SMW has awesome products. Recently purchased their hobby mod-vises and they’ve been a game changer for me.
However I like their products, fixture plate is something I’d rather make myself. You can certainly get the mic6 plate at very reasonable price from Midwest Steel Supply. Any shapeoko will handle boring and tapping the holes. In another thread, I’ve uploaded a file with all my speeds and feeds for cutting threads in sizes from m4 to m10. It took me few hours to bore and cut over 400 m6 threaded holes, but it was well worth the time. My fixture plate works flawlessly with the SMW mod-vise and I know that the holes are perfectly aligned to the machine.
I strongly recommend you consider doing it yourself. It’s a great exercise in cutting threads and tbh machine does most of the heavy lifting anyways. Just my 2c.
I’ve been thinking about maybe figuring out some way to install a plate that replaces two of the MDF slats and the underlying aluminum extrusions. I figure the dimensions will be somewhere around 7.75x26". That way I could keep my material costs down in case I mess something up. Until I have more experience boring and threading with this machine I don’t want to dive into any ambitious projects.