A big thing for us is that we can cut out all of our parts on our CNC. We have a giant Techno LC 4896 (school was new, and they spent a lot). If I was looking for our first CNC machine for our team or any other team, here would be my requirements:
- Minimum Cutting Area: 4'x4' (so you can cut the frame of your robot, as well as other large pieces)
- Easy way to secure material to table We have a vaccum table and screw into sacrifice boards. (Don't want pieces flying)
- Easy to change tools, going from 1/8" bit to 1/4", for example(You want it to be able to change and remember tool lengths so you don't have to re-zero the Z axis, and so you can use bigger bits to cut out parts. The bigger the bit size, the faster you can go)
- Coolant (Makes working with metal much easier)
- Spindle Speed >9000 rpm (The faster the spindle goes, the higher the feed rate can be. The higher the feed rate, the shorter the job)
- Easy to operate (we have a different machine that is a pain in the a** to operate. No one uses it and I've only known one person that likes it even the slightest. On the other hand, the Techno is pretty straight forward for a beginner, but there are advanced features that an experienced user can use.)
Other things that will affect your experience:
- CAM Software (Don't be cheap, get a good one. Autodesk has HSM Express for free, and you can sign up for CAM 360 Beta, which is CAMing in the cloud.)
- Tooling (You want to make sure that you have bits that can cut the materials you want it to, and that you have different sizes and multiples of some of the more popular sizes, such as 1/8" and 1/4". You will break one at some point, and you want to be able to just swap them out quickly, especially during build season.)
- Experience (Just like everything else, the more experience you have, the better you will be.)
If you have any more questions, feel free to private message me.
P.S. On any machine you get, make sure you know where the Emergency Stop is. Another great thing to have is a wireless mouse, so if you are cutting a material for the first time, you can stand a few feet back. That way, if it sparks or something breaks/flies, you have more time to react and you don't have to get closer to it in order to stop the machine. I still stand a couple feet away when I first cut a part out, and I've stopped parts numerous times with the wireless mouse (most of the time, there wasn't a problem, I just wanted to be sure).