Possibly Buying Novakon Torus Pro- Using Acorn

[ALSjosh]

Hi Everyone!

I currently have a gantry router/mill that I use for making aluminum parts. I have upgraded my router to use an acorn board and I love it. I recently found a Novakon Torus Pro that seems very well taken care of and lightly used. Does anyone have feedback on these mills? I have searched on these forums and found very little regarding the performance of the machine, but what I have found has been very positive. It currently has a Mach3 controller but I would rip that out and just replace with the acorn board from my router since it has performed so well. I am just hoping someone can give some feedback on this machine. I am a novice machinst with a garage shop just getting started. This machine seems very well built overall. Novakon seems to not be selling or manufacturing mills anymore but according to the owner of the machine that I am looking to buy, he Novakon owner is still around for customer service and to help with replacement parts. He actually lives in the same town as the guy I am looking to buy the machine from! Any advise is greatly appreciated! Asking price on this mill is 10k. Link to listing:
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... ger_banner

[Upnorth]

I see no one got back to you on this so I will. I have a Novakon torus pro that is controlled by an acorn. Most, if not all of the issues I had with it were related to the control at least as far as cutting aluminum were caused by the Mach 3 control. The upgrade from Mach 3 to an acorn board was 100% successful and I can't recommend it enough. Mach 3 did a lot of weird errors. The acorn has been completely stable and error free. If something goes wrong it has always been operator error on my part since the upgrade.

When cutting aluminum with a high quality end mill the parts usually come out within .001" without much effort. Round holes are usually within .002" with the error being at 45 degrees to the x and y axis. I have about .001 of slop in the spindle so that makes sense. For cutting steel I have not been very successful. My end mills seem to chip and there is some odd noise that I often hear when cutting. Next time cutting steel I plan on using a very short end mill to see what happens. Others don't seem to have this issue.

I see from the pictures they have upgraded the coolant lines and it comes with a pendant. Both of those upgrades are something I would have recommended.