The OMIO is some half decent hardware made like crap. You're not going to get anything that isn't potentially poorly produced unless you quadruple your budget and shop second hand, or build it yourself.

If nothing else it's a great platform to build something better. Since I've put shielded cables on everything and made a star point earth, faulty PSU aside I've had no problems with the electrics, the OMIO does have proper individual stepper drivers instead of the tacky all in one boards the eBay variants have.

I would agree with Dharmic on everything particularly the spindle. 400w I'm sure will cope with any cut the machine could manage before the frame gives way, but I'm pretty certain you will lose low rpm torque and even now I'm running a Yaskawa VFD with sensorless vector control, trying to use an 8mm carbide drill on aluminium is pushing it to its limits of usability, unless you don't mind blunting your drill every other hole. You'll also have the ability to use bigger tools which will come in handy now and again.

I would advise on just using Mach3 on a PC rather than the standalone controller. I believe (not sure) that they're just using some form of Mach3 anyway and they're seldom used, there's little support or user community for them. When compared to Mach, any problem you might encounter you can guarantee some bodies already had before and problem solving generally equates to 30 seconds worth of google searching. Even if it can hold the machines position after cutting power, with a little hands on experience you will learn how to use features of the part to find your position anyway, so it's not necessary. But I bet it just wants to rehome off the switches and as you'll have read over the last couple of pages, they're not the best and will introduce error.

I doubt you're going to find anything better for the price that is CNC ready. But depending what you plan on making, if you plan to do a lot of small parts, particularly in 'harder' stuff like aluminium for example, your cash might be better spent waiting for a second hand CNC'd sieg or a small taig, denford, EMCO or similar if you don't need the build volume.


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