I am looking to get a 3040 or a little bigger for my shop and was curious what the best of the cheap machines where?
Thanks
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I am looking to get a 3040 or a little bigger for my shop and was curious what the best of the cheap machines where?
Thanks
I think in that sort of class the 6040's by far offer the best value for money, not withstanding the fact the controller they come with will need to be replaced by a G540 as the blue box controllers are just plain garbage. The machines themselves though are just great.
I'd go for one with ballscrews instead of ACME threaded screws, and a VFD/spindle instead of the crappy DC brushed spindle some come with. The VFD/spindles tend to be around 800w, for most smaller type machining jobs this is more than adequate, and probably about the heaviest amount that's practical for the Z axis.
Ebay is your friend, I use Amonstar a lot, but just go for the cheapest you can find that has good feedback, despite their being hundreds of sellers with these, most of these sellers are all part of a small number of umbrella companies, so there's not really that much seller diversity.
If you want a turnkey solution, then look at Carving CNC's stuff's, their machines work out of the box, and generally have very favourable reviews.
cheers, Ian
Carving CNC now call themselves OmioCNC. There's a review thread kicking around which has captured quite a lot of info from a fair few purchasers of these things.
As with any Chinese supplier they have their off days, so it's a bit of a dice roll as to whether your machine will be fantastic or a dud. But it seems that the majority of people on here getting them are pretty happy with what turns up in the box. Their 2200 unit has hywin linear rails, ballscrews, a 2.2kw motor and the electronics, whilst they're not the best in the universe, actually seem to behave themselves pretty well after a few mods.
Everything I've seen and read indicates their gear is quite a notch above the standard offerings in not only mechanics, but also the important fact that their controllers, which they claim use genuine YOOCNC drivers, actually work, and work well.
Unlike pretty much all the garbage blue box controllers offered with the machines on ebay. As a comparison, I'm yet to see a single case of a 6040 or variant sold via ebay that came with a controller that worked properly, let alone the ones that come with ACME and/or trapezoidal screws, and rubbish DC spindles.
cheers, Ian
YOOCNC is certainly what's printed on the PCBs. Whether that means they're genuine or not is anybody's guess but they do seem to work ok.
I think the fact that for all practical purposes you have pretty much only two camps regarding YOOCNC drivers, one camp with Omio/Carving in with YOOCNC's that not only work, but by all reports seem to work very well, and in the other camp you have all the machines from ebay, that don't work, or have serious issues at the very least, kinda gives some assurance.
cheers, Ian
So it looks like the X6-2200L is the one to get? I really like the guides. Is there anybody that sales them in the US? Shipping was like almost $500. Is there any other comparable machines even smaller?
Thanks
you need to choose one, as others described..
with good rails, ballscrews and spindle..
the problem is, when you choose these, with a good control, then regardless size it will start over 1000..
unfortunately the only way to getting for lower price, considering cheaper spindle or controller..
you also can try to buy a barebone machine with motors, and add yourself the spindle and control..
something like this
US Free SHIP Promotion 3Axis Nema23 270oz 3A 6LEAD Driver DQ542MA CNC Engrave | eBay
but again, it will be well over 1000 if you don't compromising with brushed spindle or cheap tb board..
I have not found many machines with true linear guides like I want. Doe anyone have a list of other reasonable machines with a supported linear guides?
Very few of these machines come with Hiwin style linear rails, but for these machines so long as you get the round supported rails, and not the unsupported round rails like some of the 6040's and most of the 30xx's have, that will do you fine. Round unsupported rails are just crap and will allow flex.
I would see no point in worrying about or retrofitting linear rails on these machines unless you got them very, very cheap.
cheers, Ian
I agree that I need supported rails, I just have not found hardly any machines that have them. It looks like shipping will be 1/4 of the cost of the machine. Is there a better option?
Thanks
Considering that buying a machine from the US with equivalent specs (if you can find one) will cost nearer $10k, to cover the importer's costs and risks and put something on their dinner table, the $500 shipping might be just a reasonable part of the overall cost of the thing. That was the way I looked at it when I finally decided to buy the machine.
X4-800L (3-axis) Metalworking CNC Router --OMIOCNC(Carving-CNC) -omiocnc.com
Less than 2k. This is what I would buy if I wanted to buy one which looks good and seems to have good quality.
Still curtain rods, even if they do have a few posts. With one of those you're kinda in the ball park of the X6-2200 money wise, I had the same decision to make and don't regret the few hundred bucks extra for the hywin rails one little bit.
The X4-800L-USB does NOT use curtain rods. Read the specifications and have a look at the pictures. It is pretty clear. The X6-2200 is 30% more expensive, so that is VERY far from the ball park of the X4-800L, apart from the fact that you have less spindel options and the X6 is also considerably larger.
Well grab a brush and a tin of "dickhead" coloured paint (or two, I'm not small).
I should have read the link a bit more before I mouthed off :)
I'd dismissed the 800L for size, not the hardware. For someone who didn't need the torque or size, might be a perfect solution!
Any opinions on the machine in the link below, they are within driving distance for me??
http://www.automationtechnologiesinc...top-cnc-router
Thanks
he has with 4th axis as well..
you don't get wrong with this machine..
I think all of them has ballscrew and linear rails
I've seen several of these light weight 6090's on the market and although they're far better than the usual fare, I actually think they're very over priced for the construction and materials. Allowing for the dollar changes and inflation, I bought one of these solid frame 6090's for considerably less than the light weight version:
China Metal Engraving Machine (JCUT-6090) - China Cnc Router, Cnc Engraver
I'd think if your prepared to pay that much, a beefier machine may be better long term value possibly?
It's horses for courses anyway, only you can decide what your prepared to pay for the specs you want.
cheers, Ian
If I am going to be in the 3k range I would rather have a machine like the Jcut 6090 in your link. I could not find a price for that machine. Does it have true linear guides like the X6-2200? I also found this machine that appeares to have good linear guides. Thanks for the input!! Does your 6090 outperform the X6-2200?
Thanks
KL 6090 Desktop CNC Router Desktop 24 x 36 x 6 inch Mach3 USB Connection | eBay
Allowing for the shocking state of the dollar I paid around $2500-$2700AUD 3-4 years back from memory, as this was my first import I got hit hard, and the import costs ended up around or just under $2000 from memory. But all up it was still about 25% of the cost of buying locally, which was the exact same machine drop shipped by the local vendor to me.
The performance is amazing, and the extra weight really helps heaps. On the tabletop version you'd get far more vibration and noise than I would as the gantry on mine alone would be probably as much weight as the entire tabletop machine. Mine has either 20 or 25mm Taiwanese linear rails on all axis, NEMA23's on Z and X, and NEMA34 on the Y with a 25mm drivescrew. Very good quality spindle and VFD, etc.
They really didn't spare any parts or effort with my machine, I'm still absolutely stoked with it, and even though it cost almost as much just to bring it here as it did to buy, I think it's just about the best money I've ever spent. Even if you end up well exceeding what you thought you would, your kind of in for a penny in for a pound already, so to my mind unless there's a massive price difference, I'd go the better machine if it's at all possible given the cost of the tabletop version.
You see a lot of comments here about buying the cheaper machine and then upgrading to the better if/when/as you need to, well the reality is if you buy the cheaper machine, which is still several thousands of dollars, you'll be stuck making that investment worthwhile for many, many years before you actually get around to fork out another, higher load of cash replacing it.
Obviously personal finances and budget constrains affect us all, but buy once, buy well, is a good motto to keep in mind with significant investments I reckon, even if it means saving a bit or a lot longer.
cheers, Ian
Nice. And if I'd seen a review of that without tears and it sunk in, I may have gone down a similar road. To be honest, though, paying $2k for shipping would have turned me off.
Note that my expectations regarding upgrades was along the lines of "This will give me something NOW to get started on immediately, learn how to drive the machines, get my head around the CAM and tooling and fixtures etc. At some point down the road I'll be look at upgrading to a small Haas or Optimum VMC, or maybe a GF020 project etc".
I had/have zero interest in buying a cheap piece of **** and then pouring months and the same cost again in parts into it to upgrade it to the point where it almost didn't suck.
So I tried to give myself a bit of a head start in the quality stakes so I had something that would actually be useful for lightweight prototyping, rather than just a learning toy. So far so good.
My take on these OmioCNC machines is they're a little more expensive but have a pretty good reputation as being a cut above the usual 3020 rubbish, wrapped up in an easy-to-purchase sales process that lands the thing on my door without needing a second mortgage. They made a decent product easy to buy at a (comparative to local drop) decent price without any stress. And that's worth a lot to me.
I bought my first 6040 after buying the little Sable-2015 that I still use for PCB work, and I used it only just long enough to really appreciate the advantages of a bigger and more capable machine!
I frikkin love my 6090, I'd have it in the lounge room on display if I could! The wife possibly may not be too keen on that though. I get untold hours of pleasure when machining big 2.5D jobs just sitting feet up with a cuppa watching it work occasionally. It's very therapeutic! Hmmm...CNC is actually GOOD for the health and well being!
I got caught out on the import costs due to my complete lack of experience, and the intense pressure and stress I was under at the time thinking "delivery to your door" actually meant delivery to your door. And at the time I was hearing all sorts of horror stories of items held up in customs accruing hundreds of dollars in fees per day. So I was under a lot of pressure to just get it sorted real quick, that cost. I've heard of other Aussies having it down to around $1200 or so all up inc GST.
Having said that, I don't regret buying it one bit, ever!
The 6040 was a very good and capable machine once I threw a G540 on it, and it really got me hooked extremely quick for bigger, better, but ultimately it was a couple of grand wasted for me really. One day I'll get around to selling it.
The ones from Omio from all accounts really do look to be the bee's knee's so far as 6040's go however, but when I bought mine there was a huge cost difference, and not a lot of the info about the garbage TB6560 boards around like there is of late.
cheers, Ian
Go look at EFAMATIC. It is a South African manufactured machine and they are good and competitive. They can also build what you need.
We use them in the Aluminium wheel industry and installed them in plants world wide.
Very simple machine with good reliability and spares are easily available world wide.
Efamatic Machine Tools - Home
You haven't looked at the Omio lately, have you?
Have a look at this and tell me where it says TB6560...
I agree that drivers based on the TB6560, or any one similar, should be replaced, which is done in that Omio I mentioned. Perhaps their cheapest has still the same garbage, but not this one, the x4-800L has the YOC556 driver, which is not that Toshiba crap.