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Unread 14-07-2014, 20:28
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Re: DIY CNC Kit Advice

Just have realistic expectations of what a $700 unit driven by what is essentially a dremel tool can accomplish. It will be good and cheap, but not fast. When cutting aluminum, you need some kind of chip management (such as a jet of compressed air) or you can expect to break bits. Cooling would be good too, such as a mist cooler.

Definitely get the limit switch option ($17) if relatively untrained operators may access the machine.

Also consider that you need 3 bits of software to run it: a design program (like Inventor or Solidworks), a G-Code generator (like Cut2D from Vectrix) and a G-Code interpreter (which appears to come with the unit).

This appears to be an OK machine.
If I were spending $700, I would find a small manual mill instead, it will do more; of course, it is not CNC and some operator skill is required.

Once you have it running it would benefit us all if you would share your experiences with all of us.
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