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[Menatep]

I've been lurking around on this site for about a week now and it has helped me tremendously to learn about cnc. I am in the market for a CNC router, but i am not exactly sure whether it's best to buy one commercially or build one yourself.

I've narrowed down some of my requirements and they are listed below:

- 24" by 24" or 24" x 36" (preferably) working area with Z-axis travel of 5"
- Would like to use servo motors but might consider steppers depending on size. Anything in 200-500 oz range would be ok.
- Would like to have ballscrews
- Would like to have limit switches

Commercial offerings that i looked at are the following:

- K2-3925-G model for $6450.95 (with 3 axis controller, servos, electronics, aluminum t-slotted table top, standard ABBA brand rails, and a router mount)
- K2-2539 model for $5810 for the same configuration as above.
- DynaCNC TT2436ST 24x36 model for $4695 without ballscrews and without servo motors. If it's upgraded to servo motors, limit switches and ballscrews price shoots up to $6,069.90
- DynaCNC TT2436B - This is a barebones 24x36 table and it's listed at $1495 without any motors or electronics. They have a ballscrew upgrade for $499 and servo motor and electronics upgrade for $1995. The price comes up to $3989 but i'm not sure what else is missing and why there is a difference of almost $2000 between TT2436ST and TT2436B model with servo motors and ballscrews upgrades. I guess i'll have to call the company up to clear things up.
- A model i found on ebay... looks like it was home-made
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=220071348278
It looks like this model is using unsupported rails and acme lead screws and stepper motors. Not sure about how sturdy the frame is. I thought of just buying the table without any motors or electronics or lead screws but the seller does not want to sell just the frame. He's asking around $3200 for the 20x30 setup.

Looking at the DynaCNC it seems that their 24x36 table-top models has unsupported rails so that might cause some deflection problems if i'm cutting aluminum plates for example. I have read a lot of positive posts about DynaCNC tables, but i'm not sure if any of them came from users of their table-top machines. Does anyone here have their table top machines? If yes, how do they perform? Please post your experiences...

K2 CNC has nice offerings, but i noticed some people had issues with build quality and their customer support. Have all the problems been solved?

I actually almost bought a 25x25 k2 cnc router on ebay yesterday but someone overbid me and it ended up selling for $3700 or so.

So right now i have the following options in front of me...

1 - Buy a new K2 CNC machine for around 6k (either 25x25 or 25x39)
2 - Buy a Dyna CNC TT2436ST that is similarly priced
3 - Buy a Dyna CNC table and try to upgrade it somehow
4 - Build a machine out of 8020 extrusions in the same way that STEVESPO and CNCFOAM did. If i'm able to get precisely cut extrusions, brackets, all fasteners, linear rails and ballscrews it would be fairly easy to assemble the router table. I would buy the router mount from K2 CNC but everything else shouldn't be that hard. The thing that I don't know yet is which servo motor/controller/power supply combination would work best in this case.
5 - Try to find a used K2 machine somewhere - I actually almost bought a 25x25 K2 machine yesterday on ebay for $3600 but someone overbid me by $130 or so.

Please let me know what you would recommend or what your opinions are about any of the commercial offerings.... I have no problems spending 6k on a k2 machine but I am a DIY guy at heart and i'm mechanically at heart so if i can build myself for considerably less than 6k i'd do it.

All your replies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Menatep]

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