M1036 Micro Milling Machine, Small, black metallic

Meh. I'm concerned by this being marketed as a milling machine. As it is, it is only safe to use as a drill press with an x-y positioning system. If you mill with this spindle, your toolholding can potentially go flying as the only toolholding available on the stock spindle is mountable only via a Jacob's taper, which is only meant for axial loads. On top of all of that, the milling table was actually missing from mine. I would have to source my own now. Based on the listing, it seems to pretty clearly include a milling table. This is marketed as a milling machine; what I got was an overpriced (albeit still kind of nice) drill press. Debating keeping it. It's a shame because the headstock is kind of exactly what I was looking for in a milling head, other than the spindle.

This machine has potential, but the unit I received had a bad motor that showed signs of shorts in the coils. It got way to hot and started to have tiny wisps of smoke and a bad smell. This happens with electric motors from what I read online. I also read that most are happy with the manufacturer's other tools. As for the ShopFox in the limited testing I did the drill chuck appeared very stable and a small .5mm drillbit displayed no wobble I could see. I did not get to use the machine as it displayed the motor defects during the warmup run recommended in the instructions, and so I had to pack it up for return. It seemed like it would do the job of a small precise bench drill press for precision holes pretty well. I was sad to send it back, the lack of play in the drill chuck seemed like what I was looking for in a precision drill, with ability to do some light milling on plastic and soft metal parts. Getting the machine was a bit of a hassle, Amazon seems to think it comes in one box but it comes in two, the mill base and head in one and the slide table in the other. I received the mill but not the slide table and had to call and email amazon about it to finally get the whole machine, then it didn't work. Amazon is great for some things, but for this machine in its two boxes they seem to be confused, so maybe confirm things with them if you're going to order it.

A nice little machine - BUT - it quit after 2 months and about 3 hours of use. Too late to get a replacement, so now I have to start searching for a new motor and speed controller. And, yes, the fuse is ok.

My experience wasn't the best , the motor starting smoking and died within ten minutes after I spent a good amount of time assembling the mill and the electronic portion of the mill didn't appear to be worth what was paid

Item is junk, chuck falls off

Excellent product attentive seller

Didn’t even come whith milling table and amazon refuses to send one either

Set the shop fox up yesterday. We were very impressed with how sturdy it was. Everyone thought it looked good and would be accurate. It's packed carefully and fully wrapped with a nice coating of grease. As time went by our opinion slowly changed. The first hiccup was when we wanted to set a stop for the hole we were making(about .67)in aluminum. Setting the stop is something a machinist with 40 years experience couldn't figure out, and many others in the shop couldn't figure out. Instructions? There were three. Either we don't understand them, or they don't work, either way, major frustration. Since setting a stop has been solved long time ago, it really seems like this does not need to be reinvented. The next hiccup was in locking the slide. You use a very small set screw instead of a dedicated handle or lever. Great concept except if your vise covers this making getting the allen key in the space difficult and unable to turn more than 1/8 of a turn. We got around the stop problem by removing material under the die holding the piece. Not the way we wanted to go, but had to move on. First time turn on, could not believe how quiet the Shop Fox Micro Milling Machine was, amazing though the rpm's seemed a little slow. This did not last long. Right away, with no load, the thing quit. WTF. Then we discovered if you giggle the fuse it would come on. Some time. Then we took the speed control box off and the insides showed signs of use. We had not run this 5 minutes so that seemed strange. There was black debris inside the box. I gave up but one of us soldiered on. We found that by pulling the box out at an angle we could get it to stay on. Speed control is useless. Works, doesn't work. Very strange. I'd gone to get something to eat and wanted to run some parts. This is very light duty work and repetitive, something we don't like to do on the bridgeport as you move fast and it wears you out. With the Shop Fox we can sit down. We've rigged an air hose to eject the part into a bin with a foot pedel. Works 99% of the time. So i ran them for about an hour and a half last night. The feel of the Shop Fox started out good. The sound of the machine was smooth and constant though the engine had no guts. Slowly the sound changed. The action was not smooth and sometimes there was an odd feeling as if there was back lash in the feed mechanism. We will reevaluate the machine today, but it doesn't look good for the Shop Fox. I had high hopes as I need a small mill like this at home for making very small delrin parts. I am not encouraged at the moment.