Looking to Buy a Good Small Format CNC

[ToTallJoe]

Greetings from The Tampa Bay Area

I have been in the process of moving my small woodworking shop from a storage/work space back to my house, now this shop is not my job it's more my hobby/obsession. but I do some work for some crafters that I know so I am looking to add a 2 x 4 cnc machine.

I am not new to the CNC world I run a 5 x 8 Shopbot at work so I kinda know what I want I just need to make a good decision.

Looking at the following machines:

Shopbot Desktop Max but it's only 2x3, CamMaster Stinger, Axiom Pro, Legacey Explorer and the CNC router Parts 2x4 pro.
I have looked at plenty of others but these seem to be the more industrial machines available. I would also like a machine that uses a spindle instead of a hand held router.

Any others I should look at? Any of these I should avoid?

Thanks for the help and opinions.

Joe

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[ger21]

Just me, but I'd scratch the Legacy off the list.
Shop Sabre may be another option.

[Ryadia]

Do you have a price range for this machine or do you just want one that works out of the box?
I'm on my 3rd machine now. I should have bought this one from the beginning.

The first was a smallish 20x30 mm (about 9" x 12") machine that came from a guy who had set it up for Linux CNC, ran it for many months then found he needed a bigger machine... Much bigger because last time I called on him he had a $43,000 monster machine he was assembling!

My 2nd one was a real disaster from day one. I bought it off Ebay for about as much as I paid for the used machine. It has a table size of 720mm (28") long but only had a usable length of a tad under 600mm. (just under 2 feet). I had to shell out to have the counterfeit controller board replaced with an American made Gecko controller. My plan was to use LinuxCNC but it came back from the re-build with Mach3 configuration file. (I know zilch about Mach3 BTW).

My new machine, the 3rd one in 2 years is a true industrial machine. It runs on a variation of Linux CNC and boy oh boy... Is there a difference in how it works. It was delivered in crates and included a dust extraction system. 2 guys from the factory arrived the next day and built the machine in my shop. One of them came back to following day and showed me and my machinist how to use it. The dust extraction system cost as much as the Ebay machine did. I can put a 1200mm x 2400mm ( 8' x 4') sheet in it.

Why I'm telling you this is because you haven't specified any pricing. I paid $2000 USD (with rebuild of the controller) for a new Chinese machine expecting it to do what it was claimed it would. It came with Pirate software, counterfeit parts and low output transformer. Sure it would work, but every so often it would miss a pulse and ruin a sheet of Acrylic. This sort of machine might suit someone who was looking for a low cost machine and was willing to fiddle with it until it worked. You can get one off Ebay for about $1500 USD plus delivery. If however you plan on eventually making money from home, you'd probably be better off taking a life insurance policy and shooting yourself in the foot. Then you could buy a 'real' machine that will function as promoted without the lies and fake guarantees you'll get on Ebay with the insurance pay out! .

If you are handy with steel and welding, you could buy a set of plans and build your own. A water cooled 2.2kw spindle is about $150 USD — Yes! off Ebay but oddly enough its only the electronics, counterfeit controller and pirate software that makes the Chinese machines such a bad proposition. Structurally, they are quite sound and the water cooled spindles seem be OK too. I'm not super confident about the stepper motors but time will tell. We are using it for small jobs.

My 2nd machine seems a lot smoother now its got the power it should have had from new. My full size machine came from an Australian manufacturer so it isn't much good me mentioning brand names. Given time, you should get some stories like mine from US citizens. They might also have local knowledge of US made machines. Good luck, knowing how much you have in mind will certainly help with recommendations.

Ryadia

[ToTallJoe]

Thanks for the thoughts Ryadia.

I am not a welder and do not want to build a machine from scratch. Don't know if I have all the skills and knowledge to spec out all of the parts and electronics to create a cnc that will do what I want.
If you look at the machines in my original post they are all in the 6-10k range but they are ready to go straight out of the crate, I am willing to pay a little more for the machine for the time saved in getting it built and setup.