Well buying used does inply that you are able to determine the state of the machine. The number one issue beign tht it runs.
I don't really want to get into the specifics of buying used as that is rather hard to do over the net. What I do wnat to point otu is that there are at times many machines available n the market that have vey low hours on them. Machines from schools, research labs, government installations, too and die shops and others can be in very good condition. The other thing to realize is that numerous shops have gone out of business recently and as a result machines are hitting the market place in good condition and reasonably priced.
I don't dis agree with your fathers contact, you can end up in a world of hurt buying used. The thing to realize though is that the market is signficantly differrent now than it was even two years ago. A reasonable person would not discount the possibility.
Now as to doing a retro fit or home building a machine, that is not out of the question either. I happended to be at Cabin Fever this weekend and had the good fortune to talk to a gentlman that had started his business with a home built CNC machine. He now has two HAAS CNC machines plus he is farming out work to a local shop. This to support customers world wide. So you shouldn't be discouraged going the home built route either. The cases of success are out there.
The only problems I see with a retro fit is that it is a good deal of work, maybe even more so than getting a used machine up and running. Not only do you have to buy and integrate the CNC hardware, you have to deal with the mechanical nature of these cheap machines. You could easily spend as much time on a doit yourself conversion as would have been spent on a used machine. Do consider a kit or a already converted machine to shave a lot of time off the project.
By the way Cabin Fever was excellent if not a bit crowded this week end. There were several companies demoing various CNC hardware. One to look out for is PMDX, they have a very nice way to integrate Gecko drives into a CNC controller. There was also another venodr there with an X3 conversion system, unfortunately I did not get much in the way of documentation from either.
Thanks
Dave
Originally Posted by M4RK_23 Well my dad is a maunfactering consultant and yesterday he talked to an engineer at one of the places he goes to and he advised to not buy a used machine. He said they have done that in the past and it took a few months to get it running cause so much work needed done. So it looks like my only route will be to go new which leaves me in the bench top market. |