Hello everyone, I'm the new guy here with the same question you have heard about 100 times.
I'm looking to buy a CNC table for my plasma, I just got a Miller Spectrum 1000 80 amp machine that cuts up too 1" and is supposed to sever up too 1 1/2 inch. I got that machine with the intent of also getting a cnc table.
I been looking at this site all day reading other peoples post on the machines. Today I've spoken to dynaCNC, plasmacam and torchmate and gotten quotes. I was also going to contact Practicalcnc, dynatorch and tracker (trackers site is down)
Plasmacam didn't seem to excited about having my business and after reading what people have to say about them I'm going to guess that's their customer service. but they are inexpensive, I can get in under 10k for a 48"x48" and ready to ship. I have an old customer that has the plasmacam so I can check it out first hand.
Torchemate seems to be a good option and it's in between in cost (about 11.5K for a 48"x96") customer service seems good. their machine doesn't look super refined, but they have been doing it for years, but I have to wait about 3 weeks to get it.
DynaCNC is the best looking machine by far, comes ready to play, but is expensive (about 12k for a 48"x48") and takes about 5 weeks to get.
We do trailer mfg, so we need something to cut 1/8"-1/2" on average, although sometimes something thicker. doing the fancy artsy stuff is cool too, but not really why we want this machine, but good to have the ability of doing artsy stuff.
I know that a lot of people take the software into consideration as a big part of the system they choose, I consider myself pretty good with computers so it's not much of an issue, I rather have a machine that functions properly and besides If I run into software problems I can always ask here!
with all that said, what are you're thoughts on the machines? Personal experiences? likes & dislikes? options?
your help is appreciated when making a purchase of this size.
Thank you in advance!