I've been following the progress of both of their machines, the "micRo" (the small, desktop machine) and the "RoGR" (their large, gantry router), closely from the very beginning. Like most builds both machines have gone changes from their inception to their current states.
I was even one of the first few to pre-order the RoGR bearing kit. That was 14 months ago, back when the design for the machine was DRASTICALLY different than it's current incarnation. Unfortunately during those months my money situation got tight and I was forced to cancel my order. To this day there has not been a second RoGR completed to my knowledge, and like I said, I follow that forum very closely.
At the moment the most promising RoGR build is
Phife's. He has a lot more progress posted on the Lumenlab site, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to it so I wont.
Here's his thread here on the Zone.
Phife's machine isn't following Lumenlab's plans very closely at this point. I would say this is for the better though, as the two-man-team at Lumenlab have not been very forthcoming* with the specifics to their design.
The micRo is another story. The design hasn't changed that much and from what I can tell it pretty much lives up to the promises that were made, well, except how long it will take to complete. It has never been said that it'll replace a Bridgeport. The micRo really only had a few goals...
1. Have a large enough cutting area to mill the biggest aluminum part of the RoGR (12" x 10" x <1"). This would allow someone to buy the micRo
now in order to make the parts for the RoGR
later.
2. Be
capable of cutting steel. No promises were made regarding tolerance or speed, pretty much they wanted the machine to be able to cut something from steel if time was not a factor. I think the idea was: "hey, if I have to leave the machine running for 2 days straight that's fine by me".
- As of now this is still unproven in my opinion. They have shown one attempt but it failed (problems with losing Z because the tool was not held firmly in the mounts).
3. Be a complete "robot" for a relatively low price. I think they've let this slip a little. The complete micRo package is $1000 which is cheaper than a similar Taig package but with 2 times the cutting area. But it's only a little cheaper than the Probotics FireBall v90 (which appears to be a much faster/stronger/larger machine).
* It's hard to tell if this is from being too busy or simply being unwilling to share.
Originally Posted by FandZ  I haven't tried any of their products but for what you get the prices seem high to me. If it was for a complete cnc machine I'd be all for it but even after you spend 1.5k you'll still need to source and possibly machine some major parts yourself. Doesn't look worth it to me. I think joe's 4x4 kit and the parts/ kits ahren offers is a better deal. My 2c |
Interesting bit of trivia: I'm pretty sure
joecnc2006 himself built his first machine as a member of Lumenlab.
Also, I agree about
ahren's offerings over at
cncrouterparts.com. I think the parts he offers are perfect for someone building their first machine.
05-20-2009, 05:30 PM
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