CNC machine service?

[cargostar]

Anyone know of a company that could CNC cut/ machine parts in styrene? I’m looking for somewhere that could do a small run. 

Thanks 

[Bugatti Fan]

Picked up on this question very recently. Depends on what you want. Turned parts or milled parts? Normal machine tool bits like drill and mill bits and turning tools on a lathe generate quite a bit of heat. So maybe machining styrene might have its own set of problems. I have tried drilling styrene only to have the plastic melt on the drill bit because I could not slow down the revolutions enough on my bench drill.

Best bet is to contact a local small engineering company and get their advice. CNC machining has the benefit of accurate repetitive work to be be enabled, but the cost of programming could be high depending on the complexity of the part(s) made. A one off job will be expensive but once the program is written up there are economies in scale. In other words the more you have made, the less each part will cost.

[iBorg]

If you're going to the expense of a CNC program to create the parts, you're better to 3D print with a resin printer. Can you CNC styrene, yes.....I've done it several times before. The problem you experience is plastic produces a great deal of heat when machined and often the removed plastic remelts into some sort of blob. To do it well, you need something like a blast of air to keep it cool and remove your waste.  The 3D part would more than likely give you a better result with less frustration.

[Bugatti Fan]

Whenever you create a part using 3D Cad whether you are eventually 3D printing or using a milling machine, lathe or machining centre the Cad has to create an STL file to download to the machine.

The post processing software converts the STL file into CNC code for the machine to understand that programmers often refer to as G codes.