About two months ago I decided to purchase one of the 6040 4 axis CNC Chinese routers off of Ebay, it is tan in color and has not manufacture or identifying trade marks on it. I did this mostly for the project aspect of it as well as for wanting to use it for a couple of projects. Overall the machine is fairly well built and solid. If I had to pick the weakest point of the machine I would have to say the aluminum slats for the table flex a little but not to a point of where it is really an issue. I have purchased a few extras that I have to install and those are home limit switches, a different motion controller along with Mach 4 software, it came with a "cracked" version of Mach 3. I have experience in programming/operating SMT pick and place machines and I have no experience with a CNC routers but the two types of machines software and functionality are similar enough in theory that the CNC is for the most part basically the same. There are little to no formal instructions with the CNC but the vendor or importer did answer and resolve any questions/issues I had, which were mostly software driver issues. Once I got the PC to communicate via the USB port with the controller and watched a few short videos on the Mach 3 software I ran a few tests and everything worked as expected. I have no complaints with accuracy or repeatability, which was the first thing I tested and as I stated I found no issues with either.

I purchased a Dell desktop computer from ebay to use as a controller and went with the suggested configuration of 32 bit Windows 7, which was fairly inexpensive as well. One of the reason I chose to upgrade the motion controller was so that I could upgrade to Mach 4 which is compatible with Windows 10 OS and faster 64bit computer. As it is currently configured I have no issues with the Windows 7 or version of Mach 3 that was supplied with the machine. I am interested in possibly getting a faster computer to be able to better handle some of the CAD and CAM software I am using versus having to do that work on my laptop and transferring the finished gcode files. The motion controller and Mach 4 bundle added about another $350 to the price but again is not necessary.
One of the first test projects I did was to create a chess pawn using the 4th rotary axis. I assumed I would be able to eaily find at the very least a good drawing of chess pieces on the internet but was quickly educated that there are not a lot of drawings suitable for just importing to a cad program and generating the gcode in order to cut one on a 4 axis mill. I did eventually come across some stl files that I converted to an autocad dxl file that gave me a starting point. The biggest challenge I have had so far in regards to the CNC is finding the software to create the gcode.

I have autocad so creating dxl drawings or importing them was not really an issue for me. I also found a few free gcode generating programs for 2d work that I was able to run some tests with that worked well also. The challenge I found was finding inexpensive or free software to generate gcode for a 4th or rotary axis. I did find a some called gmax which I think was originally designed for 3d video game building applications but another company called CNC toolkit built an add on or macro that then handles the cnc gcode generating for 4 axis cnc mills. It does take a little time to figure out how to use the software. I found a couple of videos and written documentation on the internet of people demonstrating the software and I had to pay close attention to the details of those videos and once I successfully turned the chess pawn, I had a pretty good understanding of the various controls used in the gmax and cnc toolkit software. As I stated earlier this software was free and I was not necessarily looking for free but was hoping for at least fairly inexpensive for hobby purposes and now that I have used the software on two small projects I feel I am proficient enough in it to say that it does pretty much everything I need and I don't really have a need to trial any other software. The biggest challenge was finding the software for creating gcode and tootpaths that was actually designed for a 4th axis machine and then learn how to use it. I still have some things or functions that I need to figure out or become a little more efficient with but overall for my purposes investing any more time in researching other software probably won't add much benefit for me at this time.

Newfangled Solutions is the creator of the Mach software and has excellent support for their product. I contacted them with a few questions I had with the Mach 3 that I got with the CNC and they helped me out knowing that it was most likely a boot legged version and prior to my interest in upgrading to their Mach 4, which they did not push or give me any sales pitch on. The motion controller I chose was PMDX along with the daughter board for the VFD control for my spindle.

Overall I wrote this little review in hopes that it will offer some help to any other entry level or newbies to the CNC hobby along with some helpful information that may help them in their own ventures. I have no allegiance or obligations to any companies I mentioned but am thankful for their assistance in my project and believe they deserve mention for their great service/support. The Chinese machine I purchased I have to say is satisfactory for my needs, works as expected and does take an little R&D to figure out how to set up and run but with a little effort in researching on the internet and reading forums can be mastered. In the end I found that most of the challenges or issues I had, were ones that others had and there were solutions or tips published on the internet in either written documentation or videos.