[WildManDstrbd]

Hey All,
I'll start with the apology if this has been asked before but my search didn't find any answers.
No longer in the trade I'm finding many hobby jobs I want to be doing at home and now in the hunt for a CNC router/mill for the shed corner.
I'm after a machine to cut 3mm Carbon Fibre an Alum sheet, ultimately cut area 450x250mm but 300x200 would do. I'd like to stay under the $5k mark an under $3k would be perfect, please pass on any help to me that you can?

Thanks
M.Ellis

[ledaero]

Do you want to build your own or buy a completed machine?

MDF/t-slot machines would easily fit inside your budget and do what you want.

[WildManDstrbd]

Either a kit to build or pre-assembled unit as I don't have the tools to accurately make one from a plan.
Any suggestions on which brand/company to look at?

Thanks
Michael

[ledaero]

If it was me... I would buy v-trak from Openbuilds and put together a machine using aluminium extrusion.

You need v-trak for the X-Y-Z axes, but all the rest of the construction can be done with regular 20 or 40-section extrusion.

The only power tools you will need are a saw for cutting the aluminium - or take it to a local engineering place to get it accurately and squarely cut (should only be a few bucks).

You can order everything you need to DIY from Openbuilds, or buy a completely assembled machine from Colin at Robocutters in the UK.

As an example: A X3 kit in 500mm x 750mm with all the options, including steppers, spindle, software, comes to NZ$2800, plus shipping.

https://www.robocutters.co.uk/prodde...CutterX3CNCKit

But, you could build it yourself cheaper.

Look at the Routy on the Openbuilds site - it uses cheap GT3 timing belts and pinions, which are plenty accurate enough for hobby use - as long as you keep your feed rates at respectable levels. You can build the machine to whatever size you want.

ROUTY CNC Router (V-Slot Belt & Pinion) | OpenBuilds

If you want something more robust, use ballscrews instead of belts.

There's plenty of help available online.

[WildManDstrbd]

That's perfect for me, thanks so much.

[ledaero]

There are also some good turnkey small routers out of China with good installed base in Australasia.

Just as an FYI, I built an 8x4 machine, complete with all electronics, etc. for NZ$3500, including very expensive shipping (I am not in NZ, but in Borneo - shipping here, especially from the UK and US is really expensive).

For that I got good-quality steppers, a 2.2kw water-cooled spindle with ER20 collet (and a full range of collets), US-made electronics, Australian-made alloy plate and anti-backlash bearing, a solid platform to mount it on, all cables, connectors, and a bunch of spares.

I didn't need any computing - got lots of that - and I went relatively budget on the software, only piece I bought was CamBam - everything else is opensource.

[RussellK]

A reasonably common machine is one of these:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chines...ng-router.html

Works pretty much out of the box, but you do need to be prepared to learn and tweak as needed.