Originally Posted by
joeavaerage
Hi,
sorry to poor cold water on that machine, but its plastic and it will flex like hell. It might well do a fair job engraving wood or plastics but cutting aluminum, no.
If you are going to cut aluminum you need rigidity, about five times that you would require for wood or plastics, but still about one-tenth you'd need for steel.
When cutting a material the spindle/tool combination has to be held precisely in place and resist deflection of the cutting forces, which with even a small tool, say 6mm could
be several kilograms or even tens of kilograms of force. Does that 'plastic fantastic' look like it could contain as little as one kilogram of force let alone ten?
I would suggest that you look to similar styles of machine, broadly called a CNC router, but very much more substantially built, with aluminum at least, but steel construction
is better.
Craig