Re: Choosing between 3 german CNC routers
My findings on two of the three companies are as follows
BZT did not respond to two requests for a factory visit to inspect their machines, I wanted to combine this with a visit to CNC-Step.
CNC-Step welcomed a factory visit and machine demonstration.
CNC-Step may appear arrogant but this is not really the case, they are very confident of their ability which to be fair is well founded, they certainly don't welcome Chinese cut price equipment but who can blame them if they see this as a threat to their livlihoods and wealth.
So after my factory visit and fairly exhaustive research I ordered a High-Z S-1000T which is a ball lead screw equiped machine, I went with their controller and control software recomendations which were a 5 channel controller and Kinetic NC software, I ordered the Mechatron 800w HF spindle and a few other bits and pieces.
I personally collected the machine from the factory, everything was ready and the required software was installed on my Win 10 laptop.
The big thing with a machine like this is that not only does it have a good performance and accuracy, it is also plug and play, meaning that as soon as it is setup you can start working with it, no mucking around it just works.
I am making a variaty of commercial items and some hobby stuff, with care the machine can hold an 0.025mm dia accuracy on interpolated circles in 4mm carbon fibre and the same on flat sided pieces in the range up to 100mm, I have not done any work that required great accuracy that was larger than the above so have not carried out intensive inspection of the larger parts.
At one point I wanted some help with the calibration of the tool test switch and a factory technician done this via teamviewer which was really good.
Always the question is would you buy from a company again and I would say 'most certainly.'
Barrie
Barrie @ Composite Specialities Ltd. using BobCAD V29 Mill 3 axis Pro, Geomagic Design, Bricscad V16 and MOI V3