[Ace8421]

hi all,

was wondering if anyone out there could point me in the right direction.
I have ben looking at getting myself a small desktop CNC for some time now an I have searched through as much info as I possibly can. I have now narrowed it down to the following 3 machines:
1, taig cnc gecko
2, 6040 Z-type
3, shapoko 3

what are your opinions, pros and cons if you have ay?or do you have any there machine that you can think of?

many tanks
ACE8421

[awerby]

The Taig is a much better-built machine than those other two, and will handle materials (like metals) that they won't. But it has a smaller part envelope, especially in Y, so it depends on what you want to make. If the parts you have in mind will fit in its milling space, get the Taig. If you want to cut metals, get the Taig. But if you're making flattish squarish things in soft materials, you might be able to get by with something else. In that case, hold onto your money and keep looking...

[robertk925]

I have had my Taig mill/G540 for 3+ years and it is a great little machine and controller. I actually bought the mill from awerby (thanks Andrew!) and the G540/Smoothstepper/steppers from Soigeneris (thanks Jeff!) and it has worked well.

I recently converted from the G540 to a TinyG and I am pretty happy to be free of Mach3/4. Chilipeppr (a browser based program used to send gcode to the TinyG) has its quirks and limitations, but setup was a breeze and it is much easier to use and troubleshoot (not to mention the combination is hundreds of dollars cheaper than the G540/Mach).

[Ace8421]

thanks for the replies,
a machine called the "6090 router has caught my eye as well and didn't know if anyone had any views on this. an Australian wood worker by the name of roger webb uses one for all his work and he has a real true talent. it is a little bit more expensive than the other machines really does look the part. he is all over youtube if anyone is interested in seeing his work.
many thanks
ace8421

[awerby]

The 6040 is a generic Chinese model; some of them are decent quality, others not so much. Generally the mechanicals are better than the electronics (see http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chines...ing-weird.html ), but they aren't always good either (see http://www.cnczone.com/forums/uncate...78820-cnc.html ). They often ship with obsolete or unlicensed control software (see this thread: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/commer...oftware-2.html ). The 6090 is a bigger version of the same thing. You might luck out and get a good machine which works right out of the box and keeps working, but you certainly can't count on it...