Here is my Probotix Fireball Meteor Extended CNC Machine that I just picked up mainly for machining G10 Fiberglass sheets and some aluminum milling for some products I'm designing.

I'm very happy with the machine so far and its a beautiful design in my opinion.

I could not find much info about this machine before purchasing so I figured I would create a thread of other people who may be looking at Probotix larger machines so they could get a better idea of what they have to offer.

Me and my father went and picked up the machine from Probotix since I was only 4 hours away from their shop. They were very nice and the shop was busy building many different sizes of machines. They answered the many questions I had about running the machine and gave me a walk though on how to run the machine and how to create a file in ArtCam and then export to the Probotix computer to run the file which really was a huge help to get me going.

My goal with this thread is to try to have a running thread of my experience with this machine and to get feedback from others on how to get the most out of it for the different task I end up using it for. My main goal is to use it for business uses but I would also like to use it for trying to make furniture and signs which would be mainly wood cutting + acrylic.

I went with the Dewalt 611 router because of its great reviews on performance and because Percise Bits makes precision Collets for it. I talked with Ron at PercisionBits for about a half hour while he answered all my questions and he was very helpful. I ordered the extreme precision collet in 1/8th and 1/4 sizes and I picked up 4 1/8th inch chip breaker bits for cutting G10 sheets which they do beautifully.

I ordered a SuperPID speed controller also but have not hooked it up yet as I have cut some G10 already with a 1/8th inch PreciseBits Chip Breaker bit and it cut it like butter with the stock Dewalt router set on 5 speed. I mainly go the SuperPID because I though it would keep the speed down and that would keep any neighbors from complaining or from hearing it at all when the garage door is shut but its not near as loud as I was anticipating with the G10 and MDF I've cut so far. I'm sure the SuperPID will be handy in the future for some other task.

I'm playing with ArtCam Pro and Express now but I'm open to other suggestions or trying free trials of other software if anybody has suggestions. Probotix offers the post processor for ArtCam which is nice, I'm not sure if this post processor file can be used with other software just as easily or not.

Below are pictures of the system I purchased.

I'm looking for feedback on milling out pockets of 1/8th inch thick aluminum sheets. What bits are recommended? Do I need bit cooling add on? Can anybody link me to good info on doing aluminum milling with these type of machines? Speed is not a necessity, this is for small volume production and prototyping.


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