Which small production grade mill?

[Tom Kitta]

Tooling for a CNC usually ends up costing as much as the machine. If you are loading an auto tool changer you will have a tool holder and tool for each slot along with spares as jobs change. You want the CNC to run not wait while you change tools in a tool holder and re-zero between tool changes.

This does not even come close to tax bill for the mill in some provinces - I mean each tool holder is like 150 or so, maybe touch more on eBay for say Techniks (brand name).
Haas has 10 ATC so even with double # of tools (20) you are talking around just 3000 CAD (!). Few sets of ER25, ER32 / ER40 collets - say 1500 (brand name). Kurt or similar vice is under 1000.

For a manual machine spending 5500+ on tooling without cutting equipment is a LOT of $$$. But for a CNC its ... nothing.

 

[PaulL]

For a manual machine spending 5500+ on tooling without cutting equipment is a LOT of $$$. But for a CNC its ... nothing.

I'd add the proviso "for production CNC". For the smaller one-off scale machines, that's a lot of coin.