[uwpeng]

I am an engineer and a woodworker, spending some of my work days in AutoCAD and Fusion360 already, it seems like the next logical step to bring a CNC router into my home shop.

I am having a hard time narrowing down a direction to go and a budget that I should be searching for. The hobby shops have the $5-6k options pre-built and ready to go, but I feel like that must not be the best "bang for your buck"

I have been looking at CNCrouterparts.com options and am having a hard time figuring out which direction to go. If I went with one from CNCrouterparts, I would probably go with a 4x4 table, but the price range from their standard to a fully loaded pro system can range from ~$4k to build it your self and do the wiring of the panel myself, to ~10k for a fully loaded NEMA 34 pro system.

I hesitate to go lower end, other than the fact that I am very new to this, I work with a $1M 2 station 5 axis CNC at work so I feel like the interest is there...

Anyone have any experience with being in this stage and any advice based on the direction they went?

am I better off spending $3-4k on something like a shark or axiom machine and have something up and running out of the box to start?

THANKS!!!

Dan

[ger21]

There's a night and day difference from a Shark to a CNCRP Pro machine.

Doing the wiring yourself can save you a significant amount of money, at the expense of a significant amount of time.

If money is a concern, I'd go for the CNCRP Pro machine, and source and build your own electronics, including motors, and spindle/VFD. You should be able to put a high quality electronics package together yourself for about $1500.

[uwpeng]

so if i am going to spend the money and jump in, is it even worth looking at the CNCRP standard kits?

[gfacer2]

Take a look at the new centroid 'acorn' board for the controller too. I don't have one but I'm looking for an excuse to get one. My last (ie current) project is using Tinyg but the more I think about it, the more a web based interface is bugging me.

An acorn board should fit your proposed machine well especially if you are used to working with industrial controls. As far as crp pro vs standard you are getting what you pay for. CNC's will depreciate but a better build will always sell a little more easily if needed down the road.

[ger21]

so if i am going to spend the money and jump in, is it even worth looking at the CNCRP standard kits?

If you can't afford the Pro, then yes. But the Pro is well worth the extra money.

[DDgitfiddle]

Sorry to reply on this thread so late, but I went through a similar debate when I decided to jump into CNC. The CNCRP machine looks really nice, but for very similar performance, look at the FineLine Automation Saturn machines. Their 2x4 machine is pretty economical and uses a very similar design to the CNCRP. The caveat is that you will need to do a few "mods" yourself to get things fully functional if you buy the lowest cost Saturn machine. (Drill and tap holes for spoil board, add spacers for the racks, move a couple of sensor locations.)

I went pretty high-end on motors (Teknic ClearPath) and safety circuitry, but Gerry is right that you can build the electronics pretty inexpensively.

-Robert