Hi all,

Not buying anything, just looking for general info for existing machines. I've searched the forum a bit, but most posts here are about building one on your own. Always interested in that later on, but for the moment I don't think I have the time for doing al the research in that field.
I'm looking for foam cutting/milling machines, may be high-end. The end products have to be nicely finished, and can be up to 4m x 2m x 2m (these may exist out of more smaller pieces put together). The machine must be able to run every day, and rapidly repaired if something goes wrong.

I have searched a little bit. And I am under the impression that there are two three types:
* the hot wire machines (not interested in those, leaving tiny facets and undercuts that need to be hand carved) : (hotwiredirect, CNC foam cutting machine to cut polystyrene and styrofoam, foamlinx)
* the milling machines, (Frog3D, www.cncteam.nl, CNC Machining Centers, 5 Axis CNC Machines ? CMS North America Inc.)
* and the combinations between the two (router/hot wire cnc combos) (CNC foam cutting machine to cut polystyrene and styrofoam, hotwiredirect)

I can't find anything regarding pricing. Am I right to say that the combos are around € 20 000 to 30 000, and the full milling machines can be around 80 000 ?

I'm under the impression that the combos are a lot cheaper, although I'm also under the impression the results are equally nice as the from the full milling machines ? (because --> )
So what are the advantages/disadvantages from one over the other? Is it the speed? The maintenance? Are the full milling machines overkill, or maybe not depending on the needs?
What are the maintenance costs, user costs of such a machine? What are the price categories, and what is the difference between them? Also, do these machines always come with an extra pc for programming the cnc (I've read there are companies selling external cpu's because cnc milling is diffiult with windows??)?

Frog3D looks like the best. Can someone recommend me a similar company in Europe?

There is so much to know! Please help. Thanks cnczone

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