I would like to hear from others who either have looked at and bought something else or did buy Techno equipment.

I have seen one LC4896 in person and have a little concern about the movement I saw on the sides of the gantry when I pushed on it by hand.

I also looked at a ShopSabre and it too had the same movement.

My current ShopBot does not have this movement as it has stepper motors on each end of the gantry. But, the gantry does flex. I have a PRTalpha not the currently available PRS line of machines.

Comments or suggestions are welcome as well as PM's and emails.

This is a hard decision trying to keep cost down and quality of build and software up.

Thank you!

I like my LC4896. I got it used for 1/6 the asking price of a new one. I pushed my gantry to see if it flexed like you said and the whole gantry moved parallel. It did not skew at all.
One of the cool things about the unit is the x and z axis screws and nuts are covered at all time along with the linear bearings. As a result they stay very clean. I have never needed to clean or relube them since I bought the machine.

One thing I would call a detraction would be the toolpath preview and drive software. You cannot view the toolpath at the same time you move the gantry. I wish techno would make a plugin for mach 3 so we could use that. I have even contemplated replacing the controller to run geckos just so I can use mach 3.

I like my LC4896. I got it used for 1/6 the asking price of a new one. I pushed my gantry to see if it flexed like you said and the whole gantry moved parallel. It did not skew at all.
One of the cool things about the unit is the x and z axis screws and nuts are covered at all time along with the linear bearings. As a result they stay very clean. I have never needed to clean or relube them since I bought the machine.

One thing I would call a detraction would be the toolpath preview and drive software. You cannot view the toolpath at the same time you move the gantry. I wish techno would make a plugin for mach 3 so we could use that. I have even contemplated replacing the controller to run geckos just so I can use mach 3.


For just about any Techno-cnc router, the first thing you want to do to minimize backlash is replace what they use as thrust bearings with these (http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/Kit1084), which are the equivilent bearings in terms of dimensions, and angular contact instead of radial.

After replacing the above bearings, as a whole, I was very satisfied with performance, after my own linux based application was installed. I still have one customer using the LC4896, but prefer their smallest model, the Tabletop LC3024 especially for my international customers. My Kiwi (NZ) customer will be selling is lc5050 in favor of buying 2 LC3024 table top models from me because they are just as rigid and counting shipping, for him it is a 2 for one deal even compared to the LC5050. Mechanically, these machines are extremely easy to diagnose and repair, although sometimes the controller decides to send one axis the wrong way, which is more common on their native software, but still occurs occasionally on e-stop conditions here. As a practice, and to save time on removing housings to replace the microswitch, any time you E-Stop the machine, always cycle power on the unit.