Hi.

This is my first post here so please forgive me is this topic has been discussed earlier (I did a search but could not find any)

I had a serious thought of making my own lathe and my own CNC mill and did a search for
some lathe beds and linear motions. I was really eager when I found the Hepco PSD 120
which looked really good (http://www.hepcomotion.com/db_pages/products/proddetail2.php?id=0018&cat=driv). Closed/sealed threads etc etc. The price was however so bad
that I put my ideas totally on ice. One axis with 700mm travel and 10mm pitch was
close to £1500/$2700 !!!!! I found that I could actually buy a complete machine for some
extra £/$ (http://www.cnc-step.com/). Is there anyone which have seen any other
linear systems which is payable for regular amount of money.

If I could make a pull where people living in the different countries could post their price
in their home land, this would be great. I could then see if I´m simply ripped off locally
or this is the common price scheme they use..

Any one who has seen/knows about the High Z machines www.cnc-step.com and has
any experience?

Kent

Dear Kent,

Did you get any feedback about cnc-step?

Box2

Hi there.

Well, to be honest, the only place I have managed to get some kind of feedback is in the thread about Excitech machines. For some reasons, there other posts has been pretty dead...

Regarding the topic, at that time I was thinking on buying rails and all the bells and whistles to make my own stuff, but since the prices was so far out I did go for a Excitech machine which was supposed to do it all.

Have just received it and been playing for a while now.

Have you done the same thoughts as my initial thoughts ?

K

I'm a beginner - no expert, but I've recently bought a NCN-step High-Z S700 and cannot say anything bad about it. It's sturdy, well-built, and easy to set up & use.

With no CNC experience it was easy to set up with Mach 3, and I've been using it with aluminium and high impact polystyrene with a lot of success. I'm on a learning curve with software, feed rates and working with different materials, but I've had no worries with the performance of the machine. Superb value for money!

Were cnc strep good on the delivery time and that sort of thing?

How have you found the accuracy - what sort of precision have you been working to?

( I just placed my order today for an s-720!!! - I only want to hear the good stuff

Delivery time was as expected - I bought through prototools.co.uk.

Though I've not been doing high-precision work, so far the accuracy seems great. I've checked parts with micrometers after cutting and they've seemed good. I will be making parts for connectors, so the precision has to be pretty good, and from what I've seen so far, it won't be a problem.

I must do some more stuff on it, been busy with other things, but I doubt you'll be disappointed, there doesn't seem to be anything as good in the same price range that I've seen.

I assume you've looked at some of the videos on their website and youtube? If not, well worth a look to see what the machine can do.

I have been looking on the subject for a while and the HeiZ machine was a machine I was
investigating in my process. I have been in contact with several owners of these and there was
limitations which I did not like to much:

1: The machine was at the time I looked at it using a controller program which was
in DOS. I left DOS for a long time ago and was a no-go. The Win version of the program
had many supported language "buttons"/Interface, but the support and documentation was only in
German - not a single word in English on the web page (This was PCNC, I'm not sure
what they deliver now).
I found also the limitation of 15cm in Z range to be limiting since I would use a T slot table
on top of the "bed" hence limiting the cut depths for me.

2: One customer which tried to convert to Mach3 was told by Frank that Mach3 was unstable
with the machine. He damaged 2 controllers with a Z problem and concluded that the
supplied controller was not the optimum for Mach3. He was else happy with the machine
and would have bought a new one if the SW supplied was up to date. He did mention that
milling in Aluminum, he would not recommend to mill in a depth of more than
1mm as the Z axis flexes slightly when you start a big cut and then you get horrible
mismatch. The claim of massive 5mm cuts in ally where exaggerated I was told.

3: If you go for the "non-T" version the movement speeds might be limiting you when
you mill certain materials. To high RPMs and to slow movement might have you burning
for instance some plastics.

Point 2 and 3 came from owners of the machine and is a direct link to their experience.
Point 1 was my own view at that time, but if it works in Mach3 now it's great. I did however
find me a more sturdy machine with a industrial spindle for the same bucks I was quoted
for the HeiZ 1000T with all the bells and whistles.

As long as we all are happy with our machines we should be doing nothing else than
playing with out machines :-) I have some issues with mine which needs to be sorted so
nothing is perfect.

K