Guys,

I've had enough of looking and admiring the scenery, now I wanna join the club and get the hands dirty.

So here I go;
Ideally I want to enter into CNC so my thoughts turned straight to the SX3.
For around $2000AUD and (probably) a CNCFusion Deluxe kit at $ 1000USD.
I do have reservations about head/column deflection (0.1mm!?) and the necessity for head counterweight system.

However, I also have my eye on a Hafco HM-45 (Rong-Fu 45 etc clone) which is a much bigger machine with large travel at virtually the same price. It seems like a more capable machine to me.
Keeping in mind that I'm not a machinist, a CNC conversion would have to be done by me obviously and I don't have a lathe or the confidence to tackle that job. At least not yet.
Perhaps just DRO this one @$830AUD for the Meister kits on eBay?

I will be looking at doing some prototyping work initially and perhaps small production runs stuff in the future with a 4th axis. Mostly Alu with small S/steel pieces maybe. Frankly I don't think 0.1mm deflection/backlash/lead accuracy across the travel will do for my application.
Am I asking too much?
I guess I want the "better" machine and not be stuck with something that will not suite my needs.

So maybe it comes down to;
CNC SX3 or DRO HM-45 ???