Need a good table top scrolling CNC!

[mman1506]

865 has a 60x60 XZero Demon CNC Router with a HSD spindle.
Here's a video of it in action

All in it was about $10k CDN which was a killer deal considering the quality.


Some advantages of it over the Velox and other CNC routers near its price point (and things to look out for when buying a CNC router):

Ballscrews - The Velox has ACME screws that are inferior in every way besides cost. It's not uncommon to lose over 50% of your stepper motor's power due to friction when using acme screws. The anti backlash nuts also wear quickly and become imprecise.

Linear guideways - Most budget CNC's use circular linear rails which are significantly less rigid. I'd stay away from any machine using bushing on it's linear rails.

A "real" spindle - The re purposed wood routers on many CNC's were not designed for CNC machining and may have a large amount of runout. While they may be equipped with speed control they quickly loose torque at lower RPM's.

That's not to say that the Velox and other budget CNCs are bad. The Velox looks like an awesome out of the box option for teams. It took us a whole season just to get our CNC setup and it's still not 100% done. In my opinion the most important part of any CNC machine is having someone who knows how to operate it. Things like fixturing, CAM, feeds and speeds can be difficult to learn. Our team has access to 5 CNC machines (2 mills, 2 routers, 1 lathe) and we still rely on laser cutting sponsors to do the majority of our machining due to a limited amount of experienced CNC machinists and time constraints.