Another Idea

I was faced with the same decision a couple years ago. I started by looking at budget machines and found that when equipped with everything I needed (quality vacuum pump, tool changer, quality spindle, etc.), they were not as budget as they initially appeared. If you intend to make a legitimate effort to focus your buisiness around a CNC router, you need to focus on the machines configuration first and foremost. I ended up with an used SCM Routomat and have been generally happy with it, but if a time machine were available I would have considered my potential clients needs and purchased a machine with a different table configuration. My current machine is a 4'X8' bed and cuts everything that I need for my own products. I, like yourself, had figured that I would cut parts for other shops as well as my own to cover the machine's seemingly enormous monthly cost. Since then, at least a third of my CNC clients have brought me 60"X60" baltic birch ply and on many occassions have brought parts that are to be cut from a 10' sheet. I have been able to work around this by hang peices over the edges of the table and cutting them from two ends, but the ideal configuration seems to me to be twin 5'X5' tables that can work individually, allowing one to be unloaded/loaded while the other is cutting, or they can be linked into one 5'X10' table which can cut your standard 4'x8' sheet as well as 5'X10'. This all relates back to what you are willing to pay for your machine. An extra $400/month would have got me into a nice used machine with twin tables. If you have to be creative to accomplish your work when it doesn't fit, you make far less money than you could in the same time frame with a more capable machine. I have had no trouble generating enough income to pay for my lease and in retrospect would be comfortable paying half again more. Some months the machine pays for itself in 2 or 3 days ($600/day is not unusual or hard). The other most important factors in my experience are the vacuum system and a toolchanger. The midprice machines can deliver on these things, but don't forget to look at the value of a good heavy industrial used machine. I am not familiar with enroute but have heard goods thing from good sources. It seems as if it would be flexible enough to cover a lot of different tasks.