Hi everyone!

I've been shopping around now for a few months for an affordable machine that is minimum 48" wide with decent stepover accuracy and speeds. Looking around the web, I keep coming back to CNCRP as the pricing seems fair, they ship to Canada and the specs...look... good.

We strictly carve 3D works, which means that X and Y top speeds don't actually mean anything to me, and *everything* is dependent on a fast, smooth and rigid Z axis. I am seriously considering using 2 motors in sync on the Z drive to ensure fast and rapid speeds, stops and accelerations to maximize my horizontal speeds. The nature of what we carve, generally has large Z movements, upwards of an 1" directly upwards.

I was wondering if anyone could chime in with experience carving 3D works? Currently, my large table is quite slow, running at 30IPM for smooth consistent horizontal motion, as the machine isn't as rigid as I would like for rapid deceleration and accelerations.

My test is : I move the Z up and down 1/2" 10-20 times as fast as possible, to see the highest speed I can reach and how rigid it is doing rapid stops without the stepper motor skipping.

My focused questions :

1) What is the fastest acceleration and top speed you can achieve on the Z axis without any cutting?
2) What is the tightest step over along the X and Y you have seen achieved? (They say ~5 thou, but is that a consistent 5 thou?)

As wishful question #3) If you've carved 3D works in the past, could you post a macro picture showing the stepover quality, or even better a video of the machine carving a 3D piece at your fastest comfortable settings?

I am not afraid to run the machine hard, as I generally tune/tighten everything weekly, or after each long run. I mainly want to be able to reduce carving times as much as possible from what I am currently running.

Thanks so much!

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