[stefon]

"buy your second machine First" is a phrase I constantly run into here. I was looking into buying the Fireball v90, but I am concerned I will outgrow it fast. What are the general thoughts on the comet or meteor by Probotix, or even a better machine for my first?

[aarggh]

In my opinion, and everyone is different (in the same kind of way), if your trying to decide on a (relatively smallish?) price difference for different size machines, I would absolutely recommend definately hanging out that little longer for a bigger or better machine, especially more so if it's a hobby. No matter how serious a hobby.

You can pretty well be assured that once you sart down the cnc path, you'll end up moving to bigger and/or better for sure! For a hobbiest, that can be a pain as quite often in an upgrade you'll butcher the first machine for steppers, or a controller, and you are left with a machine that doesn't have much resale value (even if was complete), so it actually ends up costing more than just buying the second machine first!

As a hobbiest, the thought of multiple machines running sounds nice in theory, but what generally happens is you tend to favour the latest bought machine (you bought it cause it's better than the old one right?), as the setup is the same, it's accessible all the time, the hold downs are on the table, the one computer is hooked up to it, the dust extractor is connected to it, etc, etc. And the other older ones usually languish somewhere in a corner sulking, with timber and junk stacked on them as they make a very handy bench!

cheers,
Ian

[cabnet636]

I got a carvewright knowing full well i could live without the money if i needed or found i could move up and within six weeks and i did,,,,, glad i did it but it is a decision about the investment in your learning curve, i went with machines with strong owner support forums and my learning curve was reduced greatly. at this pint 5 years later i am on my fifth machine after the first one i looked for long term well built with good resell value. i have lost very little money on my machines and still have the carvewright,

[subsoniq]

A quick comment for those of you that have unused cncs or even parts of them stuck away in a corner just not to be used again. How about google up your nearest hackerspace or maker group and donate the parts to them! They will garranteed build and make use of the parts and make it work again!

As for cnc, i just bought my fireball v90 and for my small appartment use its perfect. Pcb milling and small parts. Comvined with my makerbot 3d printer its perfect.

If i outgrow th v90i have a bigger problem as well. Then i need to sell the appartment and buy a house or something

[aarggh]

The only problem with wanting people to donate unused and unwanted parts, is that by the nature of the hobby, I don't think many cnc owner plan to not ever use parts they bought. The attitude is usually that here's always at least one project they will be useful for! So they may well end up never getting used, but usually it's not planned.

cheers,
Ian

[Harry82]

May I ask what peoples general thoughts on the Fireball brand routers are? General overall quality, durability etc???
I'm considering the Meteor as a starting point, and keen to hear some feedback.
Thanks

[aarggh]

May I ask what peoples general thoughts on the Fireball brand routers are? General overall quality, durability etc???
I'm considering the Meteor as a starting point, and keen to hear some feedback.
Thanks

Although i don't have one I did look into them when considering machines, and while they are a really neat looking machine and well designed, for us in OZ I don't see any benefit in them at all, especially considering the very, very high price for an MDF construction machine. If you can get the whole package ready to run quite reasonably priced (where?) as in under around $1000-$1200 total it might be worth it, but I really think you'll find the Chinese 6040's with a G540 much better value, more accurate and repeatable, and far, far more robust.

As with the Shark Pro type machines, I think they are absurdly overpriced machines considering the extensive use of MFD/plastic, no spindle, acme/trapezoidal thread screws, bronze bushings (!), etc.

A 6040 with a spindle and VFD, and solid aluminium frame, gantry and table, ground or rolled precision ballscrews and ballnuts, and proper hardened linear rails, will be around $1600-$1800 including shipping, add $280 for a G540, and your set.

Apart from the crap controller they are supplied with, my 6040 is a real beaut beasty, capable of heavy aluminium machining, the Probotix will require a router, and a PID (at around $150-$200 extra) to control it and help extend the life of the router as they just aren't suitable for long term cnc use.

My 2c anyway.

cheers,
Ian

[Harry82]

I had looked at the 6040, but thought it sounded too cheap to be of any use. If you think it does ok though, then it's worth looking into.
When you say the controller is no good, what do you mean by that?
And the G540 you linked to just showed up as a CPU chip, is that what you meant, swap out the main chip with this?

Cheers for your thoughts, always happy to get feedback.

[aarggh]

I had looked at the 6040, but thought it sounded too cheap to be of any use. If you think it does ok though, then it's worth looking into.
When you say the controller is no good, what do you mean by that?
And the G540 you linked to just showed up as a CPU chip, is that what you meant, swap out the main chip with this?

Cheers for your thoughts, always happy to get feedback.

Ignore the link, for some bizarre reason I find really, really annoying on the zone, it arbitrarily picks words to highlight for no obvious reason! I think it's the semi intelligent adwords capatilisation used to generate revenue here.

The 6040's are really amazingly good value, and as with almost all Chinese kits though you may need to shim a side, or adjust some parts to get it 100% flat or perpendicular, which is really no big deal at all. My one had a 0.5mm dip on the table at the front left, so a little shim had it perfectly flat in no time.

They do all suffer from the same rubbish controller kit supplied, which is TB6560 based, these are almost always poorly designed controllers that don't work and have all manner of ground and noise issues, and fixing them really isn't worth it. The best thing to do is add a G540 or a Lini, etc, in place of it, and the machine will absolutely rock! And it will happily perform the exact same, repeateadly, for as long as you want. Even rip out the TB6560 boards from the case and place the G540/Lini inside it.

I've machined 38mm thick aluminium mounts with mine, and I don't care what anyone says, for cnc, a spindle and VFD beats a wood router any day in my book. The 0.8kW or 1.5kW (preferably 1.5kW if you can) spindle/VFD combo's that come standard with these, are more powerful, accurate, reliable, quieter, and efficient than using a standard wood router, which despite what many people may say, was NEVER designed for the heavy loads and very long running times used in cnc work, and especially, the bearings in routers are just not designed for cnc loads and will generally fail.

When I decided to buy a machine I very thoroughly went over all the models that were available to us in OZ. I had a good look at the Fireball, and the Shark, and in my opinion, even with the slight lack of quality finishing from the Chinese stuff, I don't think they hold a candle to a 6040 long term. Certainly as "nice" as they may look, the build construction is nowhere near the simple robustness of the 6040. I must say, for machines in the price range they are, I think it is absolutely ludicrous they don't use proper linear rails or ballscrews, acme thread and especially trapezoidal screws just don't cut it long term, and will be far more prone to suffer backlash, and are just no comparison to ballscrews. Don't even get me started on the fact the Shark is made of plastic! Plastic! $4500! Just thinking about it does my head in!

Hope this helps somewhat?

cheers,
Ian

[Harry82]

Thanks Ian, thats good to know, and admittedly I did google the G540 afterwards and realised what you were getting at.
I guess if it's got the oomph to keep working for hours at a time, we can forgive a few errors and being a machinist myself I can correct for minor errors.
I guess the next question would be how do i know what style of controller to purchase to replace the not so great bundled one.

Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it.
Mick

[aarggh]

Thanks Ian, thats good to know, and admittedly I did google the G540 afterwards and realised what you were getting at.
I guess if it's got the oomph to keep working for hours at a time, we can forgive a few errors and being a machinist myself I can correct for minor errors.
I guess the next question would be how do i know what style of controller to purchase to replace the not so great bundled one.

Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it.
Mick

I have a number of the G540's so I used that as I think it's about the most bullet proof driver set out there, it took me about an hour to work out and verify the A-/A+ and B-/B+ wires for each axis, and then hook them up to the G540. I use Mach3 (you could use EMC for free if you want) on the PC, as the controller software to talk to the G540 via the parallel port. You can also later on add a 4th axis for rotary work as the G540 has 4 drivers built in, along with line signal conditioning and protection, very, very good value. The built-in mid-band reasonance dampening (google it) is also crucial for a lot of builds.

I'm happy to help as much as you need, it might seem daunting and a lot of work, but it's really not at all. It's pretty easy in fact, and you could have the machine up and running fairly quick.

I name the G540 as that's what I use mostly, but there are other drivers out there that are also excellent from all I've heard such as the LiniStepper, just steer clear of anything TB6560 based to be safe.

Cheers,
Ian

[4DThinker]

May I ask what peoples general thoughts on the Fireball brand routers are? General overall quality, durability etc???
I'm considering the Meteor as a starting point, and keen to hear some feedback.
Thanks

I just ordered the Meteor from Probotix. This was after researching every other 24x48 CNC I could find on the web. I already own a CNC Shark but wanted something a little larger that would still fit in my shop. They haven't shipped mine yet, but I expect it to be a big improvement over the Shark.

4D