I am envious! Can that CNC handle hardwoods like cherry and walnut?
yes can cut steel!
Just so that someone reading this doesn't come to poor conclusions about a machine like this being able to "cut steel", I'll throw in my two cents.
A machine like this one is a great, lower cost way to get into large format CNC routing, albeit at an additional cost of much assembly, high maintenance and slow operation. From what I have seen from the build methodology, and user experiences, it has a difficult enough time cutting wood, let alone steel, or even aluminum, due to inherent deflection and myriad other weak points. It appears that folks using these types of machines are taking 6-7 passes on a through cut of 3/4" MDF, and 4-5 on 1/2". And even at those rates, there seems to be enough deflection or positioning error to produce visible "waterlines" at each pass. Everything on the stock machine is riding stainless v-groove rollers on one edge of 1/8" x 3/4" aluminum "L" extrusions. Aside from the deflection in lateral directions with this type of arrangement, Z-axis uniformity will start to become an issue as the rails start to inevitably wear. How quickly the wear becomes an issue will depend on the accuracy of the build, gantry weight and how often the machine is used.
A high power spindle, without making numerous improvements to the machine, will likely not yield much improvement. The primary advantages with powerful spindles are sound levels, constant torque, and fine speed control. Unfortunately, the water-cooled Chinese spindles aren't much quieter in operation than a good router body, so sound level reduction is questionable. The constant torque and speed control aspects usually are of most benefit when hogging into material at deep passes, and managing chip size. When taking such small cuts at low speed to manage deflection, these concerns will likely never be an issue. However, if the machine is running hours on end (which it probably will be in any production capacity, given the increased time to make cuts) the water cooled spindle will definitely be a plus, over a router body, just for longevity concerns.
This isn't to say that these issues can't be addressed, but getting them under control, and keeping them that way, is going to be a fairly long and bumpy road. It will also require additional expense and a lot of mechanical ability. It may even require replacing a number of the components outright, so one really has to look at the expectations one has in the end to decide whether the added expense of a kit of this nature is worth it, or whether one would be best served buying the basic CNC components (steppers, rails, electronics, etc...) and designing a solution which meets the final goal at the best price point possible. Given the cost of the kit and what is included for the price (essentially off the shelf extrusions, motors, electronics and about $60 worth of CNC'd MDO), it seems kind of high. But I imagine that half of the price+ is based on support requirements, documentation and investments in R&D, which have high associated costs.
In any event, it looks like you have an adventure ahead of you and it should be fun, educational and maybe a bit frustrating (it's par for the course) all at the same time. Now get to work on that table while you're waiting for the parts
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Topic: CNC (Read 4548 times)
