It's a small desktop mill made by a small startup company called Bantam Tools. I used their PCB mill while I was in school and really loved their approach with high user friendliness. When they announced this larger mill a few months ago I ordered it almost immediately, sure happy I didn't wait either because they're just now starting to ship and have a 6 month wait if you order now.

It's certainly not the be all end all of mills but I'm super limited on space and this is the only mill in its price range that has auto probe capabilities which is huge for me. 99% of the parts I make are aluminum so I don't have a huge need to machine steel or titanium right now so this allows me to make tons of the one off pieces for my car as well as support my side business doing design work.

My only big gripe with it right now is its lack of a vise which is likely because of its limited Z axis travel. I've already expressed my desire for a vise to them and I guess plenty of others have as well because they said they have something in the works. I just hope it doesn't reduce the Z axis too much further.

https://www.bantamtools.com/machines...illing-machine

Don't let it hear, you might hurt its feelings!

 

The new Bantam mill looks great. I have a friend with one of their older PCB mills who loves it.

If it makes you feel any better, it's much more capable than my little Shapeoko 3 that I use for wood. Some day I'd like to step up to either the Bantam Desktop machine (easy button, smaller workspace) or the Avid CNC Benchtop Pro (lots of DIY to get it running): https://www.avidcnc.com/benchtop-pro...kit-p-314.html

Have you looked at the Saunders Machine Works fixture plates and their low-profile clamping system? https://saundersmachineworks.com/col...-tooling-plate The fixture plate completely replaces the stock table, so no Z-axis penalty. The clamps are low profile enough that they don't eat into your work area much.

 

That Avid machine looks like a pretty solid deal. Although those open frame gantry style mills tend to have a tough time holding tighter tolerances. It all depends what you're trying to make with it though, if you only have to hold like 10 or 20 thou tolerance that'd probably work fine and it's got a pretty good sized workspace.

No, I didn't know about that fixture plate. Definitely something I'm going to consider getting, thanks!

 

Updated and printed my cam housing design. I had some concerns about only 1 mounting bolt causing uneven compression on the o ring and leaking so I tweaked it to use both the mounting holes the stock housing uses. A slight challenge as the sensor is trying to occupy the same space but I made it work. Also added a threaded hole for the ground strap that bolts to the housing. Fits like a glove on the first shot when I test fit the print! Going to start designing a fixture for it soon.

Should be ordering the cables for my new shifter cables today or tomorrow. I've got the designs for the cable ends and firewall bulkhead plate done, just need to do the designs for the mounting brackets after I get the cables. The cable stuff will probably be the first things I make on the mill as I want to get those done because I keep seeing people looking for cables.

 

You should design one that you can attach a mechanical fuel pump to.

 

I'm not sure the market for mechanical fuel pump setups is big enough for me to spend the time designing that.

 

There are already effective solutions for mechanical fuel pumps to be mounted in like 3-4 different spots on the front of the motor, one being off the dry sump pump if the car is dry sump. And as Austin said, the market is limited for that (cars making >1000whp really). So I agree with him that there wouldn't be much return on it.

 

While on the topic of fuel pumps, it's something I've been contemplating lately. I'm going to be changing pump setup this year to give myself some more headroom. Currently the fuel system is all stock save the injectors and AEM pump.

I'm can't decide if I want to move to a single Walbro 450 and tear out the high voltage wiring and replace it with something thicker, or drop in a second AEM pump. The high voltage/second pump is going to be triggered by an AO on the ecu so no need for a hobb's switch or boost reference. The goal is to have adequate fuel while keeping the wires as neat as possible, not having to add extra relays is a big plus to me so I'm leaning towards the single pump option right now. I don't think stock wiring can be split to supply 2 pumps can it?

 

You would have to run both pumps full time if you wanted to run stock wiriing, and I would have the stock wiring simply trigger a relay for each pump.

Easy button is definitely the Walbro 450 or 525 route. Simply mod the hanger and do the hi/lo voltage rewire and use the I/O on the haltech to trigger it.

 

Ive never seen anybody use anything but the Magnus kit except xsesiv on here who like I suggested above had it on the cam sensor housing, although from the pics he had it up it was a 3D printed item at the time.

I know it’s not majorly used unless you have huge HP but it does potentially give the alternator an easier life unless you get a higher rated item.

 

Burned some late night oil last night and hammered out the new design for my cooling setup. Buying a new oil cooler because the old one was filled with ****. Staying with the same size 25 row cooler I ran before but changing location. Also decided to add a 10 row power steering cooler as I noticed my fluid would boil on hotter days last year. So I came up with a design that bolts the coolers together and then uses brackets on the top and bottom to bolt them onto the core support using preexisting threaded holes where the condenser fan used to be.

Oil cooler on bottom and power steering on top should keep the lines short and easy to run. Coolers are on order and once I have them I can mock them up on the car and print off some brackets to rough in the last couple unknown dimensions so some of the holes will probably move around a bit and the brackets may grow or shrink a bit and I may make them wider to seal off gaps but won't know for sure until I can start putting things together with my hands, either way I'm excited for something simple and clean to come from it.

Decided to go with Koyo oil coolers. They're priced well below the likes of a Setrab or CSF but carry similar performance from what I've seen.

 

Is that 2 coolers then, Oil and PS? If So, I wants! I have a buddy that can get good and quick jobs done cheap for water jet and he can bend them also (I think he can bend that long). One other thing to consider and that I found on my relocated oil cooler, it needs ducting really bad. My current cooler I have a design to make but need to move first to have the space to make the mold for a carbon duct.

 

Yes, 2 coolers. Where the bolts are kind of in the middle are is where they meet. They're the same length, just different heights (10 vs 25 rows). I measured my car yesterday afternoon and these two will just barely squeeze into this area with a couple inches to spare for hose ends and fittings. Once I get the coolers I'll be able to check if I can get away with normal hose ends or have to get banjos to save height.

I'll definitely be in touch with you about it. My jet shop has gotten more expensive over the past year. If he can't bend it I can. I'll double check my brake but it should be just long enough to do the job, bracket is right at 13" wide. Right now I've spec'd the material as 1/8" stainless but am contemplating a thicker aluminum although bending would be more annoying if I went that route.

Ducting the power steering should be somewhat easy, maybe. Another nice thing about putting the power steering up top is it'd be easy tot make a duct for it in the upper grille. With the oil cooler between the intercooler and rad I'm not sure it'd be able to get ducted super easily but that's kind of the case for anyone who relocates to the center of the car.

 

With my desires to rear mount the radiator, really good oil cooling with a little more capacity sitting in the cooler would be a good thing.

For turn time, we can get things in days as long as they have material.

 

Good deal. I'll let you know when I've got the design all done and it fits up good. Hoping to get it fit perfect in 2 or 3 tries.