I wish the CNC machines with a router instead of the laser became more standardised, and available to buy off of AMAZON and made in a “it just works” territory.
The choices are either DIY ones off aliexpress or the more expensive ones like Shapeoko.
Quality is all over the place and given the fact that they have a tool that creates backpressure (and that sometimes wants to 'climb' the workpiece depending on the direction of the cut) any kind of imperfection in the mechanism will immediately show up on the work product.
I don't think anything you buy of Ali or Amazon in this price range will ever be in 'it just works' territory, neither laser nor mill. They're barely functional and usually need quite a bit of tweaking to get them to work properly. And tbh I don't think the Shapeoko is that much better.
CNC milling is messy, you'll spend quite a bit of money in tooling and the work area is usually quite limited. If you want a larger machine and it still has to be affordable I'd shop around for an older industrial machine. It will be large and heavy but construction wise there isn't going to be anything small and lightweight that can begin to compete. If you're lucky you might even get a bunch of tooling with it.
Indeed. Thanks for the link to the DIY setup. A few years ago, I would have been super excited about building one like this myself even if it takes a month of tinkering to get it to do what I want. Now with two kids and _life_ the way it is, my 5 hours on Saturday is precious. I need to choose between building tooling versus building the thing I want..
As much as I resist, I’m probably the target audience for companies like Shapeoko. I just can’t pull myself over the wall to spend three thousand plus Euros on a thing that will get used on weekends in my hobby workshop :-(
If it was about a thousand euros, I’d have found a way to justify it..
I see all the caveats about the lasers and also the nasty fumes they make me deal with - hence the desire to go with a mill - a known devil to me.
Also, I work most of the time with Hardwoods and CNC mill is more appropriate for the task than the laser regardless of power.
I’ll keep a look out in marktplaats for any used CNC mills. I hadn’t thought of that.
The Openbuilds machines are the closest thing to a "standard" in low-cost CNC routers. They are a kit, but they're well-designed and have good support.
If you want a CNC router that truly "just works", you're looking at spending five figures on something that's delivered by a semi truck. You can't escape the laws of physics, so a reliable and stable machine necessarily requires a big steel or cast iron frame.
The choices are either DIY ones off aliexpress or the more expensive ones like Shapeoko.