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Massimiliano
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Hi, for those who own one: I am considering to buy a CNC Milling Machine and I am asking for advice as there are so many options.
Target materials are foam and MDF, Z axis is a must. No problem into assembly myself, given the option.
What would you suggest?
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Warren (Staff)
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Group: Administrators
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Difficult one as there are so many companies on the market and as the pace of the industry is changing quickly, lots of new models and features. I am sure people here may have some experience of ones they have used. Also there are a few CNC orientated forums online which are worth looking at as they will often have more current information.
If you are looking at cheap chinese stuff, then do your research very thoroughly. There are great savings to be had but at a much higher risk of ending up with junk. So be careful as even cheap chinese CNC is still not "cheap" enough to be throw away money wise!
Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
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Chinese 3040/6040/6090 depending on how big a bed you want. CNCest are a good supplier, I have their machine and it is solid.
Realistically with Chinese machines what you want to be doing is only using the hardware, and supply most of your own electronics. Ditch the wiring and stepper controller that come with the machines and get good quality shielded cable (especially important for the spindle) and a Gecko G540 controller (this is where you dont want to cheap out, the controller is critical). The steppers that come with the machines are Nema 23's and they are actually quite good, so keep them and just use your own wiring. The VFD's are apparently a bit hit and miss, but I'm still using the one that came with the machine and I haven't had any issues with it at all.
I'd also recommend getting the 2.2kw water cooled spindle. Bit more expensive but means you can use ER11 collets and fit bigger end mills, as well as being a lot quieter and happier running for longer or cutting aluminium etc.
Also, get yourself a dedicated PC for the CNC, don't try and run it off a PC that is used for anything else. You want only the CNC software on there and thats it, no network connection, nothing. Dont use a laptop, get a desktop PC. Ideally something old with as few power saving features as possible. Windows XP is ideal. And if possible, something with a parallel port rather than a USB port. Getting harder to find these days, but the parallel ports are much more reliable than USB.
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Massimiliano
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 167,
Visits: 1.1K
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+xChinese 3040/6040/6090 depending on how big a bed you want. CNCest are a good supplier, I have their machine and it is solid. Realistically with Chinese machines what you want to be doing is only using the hardware, and supply most of your own electronics. Ditch the wiring and stepper controller that come with the machines and get good quality shielded cable (especially important for the spindle) and a Gecko G540 controller (this is where you dont want to cheap out, the controller is critical). The steppers that come with the machines are Nema 23's and they are actually quite good, so keep them and just use your own wiring. The VFD's are apparently a bit hit and miss, but I'm still using the one that came with the machine and I haven't had any issues with it at all. I'd also recommend getting the 2.2kw water cooled spindle. Bit more expensive but means you can use ER11 collets and fit bigger end mills, as well as being a lot quieter and happier running for longer or cutting aluminium etc. Also, get yourself a dedicated PC for the CNC, don't try and run it off a PC that is used for anything else. You want only the CNC software on there and thats it, no network connection, nothing. Dont use a laptop, get a desktop PC. Ideally something old with as few power saving features as possible. Windows XP is ideal. And if possible, something with a parallel port rather than a USB port. Getting harder to find these days, but the parallel ports are much more reliable than USB. Thank you Hanaldo. What software do you recommend?
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 2.5K,
Visits: 28K
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+x+xChinese 3040/6040/6090 depending on how big a bed you want. CNCest are a good supplier, I have their machine and it is solid. Realistically with Chinese machines what you want to be doing is only using the hardware, and supply most of your own electronics. Ditch the wiring and stepper controller that come with the machines and get good quality shielded cable (especially important for the spindle) and a Gecko G540 controller (this is where you dont want to cheap out, the controller is critical). The steppers that come with the machines are Nema 23's and they are actually quite good, so keep them and just use your own wiring. The VFD's are apparently a bit hit and miss, but I'm still using the one that came with the machine and I haven't had any issues with it at all. I'd also recommend getting the 2.2kw water cooled spindle. Bit more expensive but means you can use ER11 collets and fit bigger end mills, as well as being a lot quieter and happier running for longer or cutting aluminium etc. Also, get yourself a dedicated PC for the CNC, don't try and run it off a PC that is used for anything else. You want only the CNC software on there and thats it, no network connection, nothing. Dont use a laptop, get a desktop PC. Ideally something old with as few power saving features as possible. Windows XP is ideal. And if possible, something with a parallel port rather than a USB port. Getting harder to find these days, but the parallel ports are much more reliable than USB. Thank you Hanaldo. What software do you recommend? Mach3 for sure.
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Warren (Staff)
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Group: Administrators
Posts: 2.5K,
Visits: 7.9K
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It seems crazy in this day and age you need an ancient old PC to run CNC. Surely if you use a decent modern controller you can use USB and the more modern USB capable mach 4 or better? Sure you would need to create a custom power program on windows so it doesn't shut off mid cutting.
Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant
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Massimiliano
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 167,
Visits: 1.1K
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+x+x+xChinese 3040/6040/6090 depending on how big a bed you want. CNCest are a good supplier, I have their machine and it is solid. Realistically with Chinese machines what you want to be doing is only using the hardware, and supply most of your own electronics. Ditch the wiring and stepper controller that come with the machines and get good quality shielded cable (especially important for the spindle) and a Gecko G540 controller (this is where you dont want to cheap out, the controller is critical). The steppers that come with the machines are Nema 23's and they are actually quite good, so keep them and just use your own wiring. The VFD's are apparently a bit hit and miss, but I'm still using the one that came with the machine and I haven't had any issues with it at all. I'd also recommend getting the 2.2kw water cooled spindle. Bit more expensive but means you can use ER11 collets and fit bigger end mills, as well as being a lot quieter and happier running for longer or cutting aluminium etc. Also, get yourself a dedicated PC for the CNC, don't try and run it off a PC that is used for anything else. You want only the CNC software on there and thats it, no network connection, nothing. Dont use a laptop, get a desktop PC. Ideally something old with as few power saving features as possible. Windows XP is ideal. And if possible, something with a parallel port rather than a USB port. Getting harder to find these days, but the parallel ports are much more reliable than USB. Thank you Hanaldo. What software do you recommend? Mach3 for sure. What do you think about this one? USB 4Axis 6090 Water-cooling Router Engraver Machine
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Hanaldo
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 2.5K,
Visits: 28K
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+xIt seems crazy in this day and age you need an ancient old PC to run CNC. Surely if you use a decent modern controller you can use USB and the more modern USB capable mach 4 or better? Sure you would need to create a custom power program on windows so it doesn't shut off mid cutting. Ive seen some people have had success with USB, but I have had endless issues with it. It just doesn't read fast enough, even 3.0 seems to be slow or have too many disconnections that disrupt the machine. I don't even read post files direct from the USB stick these days, I always make sure to copy the files to the PC and read from there, as anything to do with USB results in missing steps. I actually know this issue from my experience in tuning cars as well, you do get fairly regular drop outs and connection errors when connecting to the ECU via USB. Ethernet would really be the ultimate, but none of these machines are using it. Mach4 isn't really much more modern for what these machines are being used for. If you were doing 4 or 5 axis machining then yeh Mach 4 would be the go, but otherwise Mach 3 is still just as good. And yeh, you need to setup custom power settings regardless of what PC you are using. Ive always just used the one PC so I can't really comment otherwise, but I know when I was getting into it I read a lot about people using Windows 10 and finding there were just some setting that weren't configurable that were causing issues. Some people came up with work arounds, others ended up just ditching it and getting an old PC. I wouldn't say these are rules, I'm sure you can use other equipment and make it work, but I think it is just so much simpler with the older tech and less to go wrong. Too many fancy functions and too many processes/things running in the background on newer computers. Every little thing that interferes just causes inaccuracy, and when your job ends up drifting 1 or 2mm during the operation it's hair pulling at best and damn right infuriating and expensive at worst.
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