So we are looking at a velox 5050. We had to get three bids. Laguna has quoted a 4x4 swift vacuum package for a couple $K more. Big thing is it has a vacuum table, water cooled spindle, 3hp spindle, and base. So our question is, which one to get? Any recommendations or comments/reviews?
Laguna has very bad customer support, but it’s a better machine than the Velox. If you are ok with missing out on software features for an increase in performance, go Laguna. Otherwise just get a Velox and replace the router with a 2.2kw spindle.
We have had a 50X50 Velox for 3 years now and I endorse them 100%
+1 for the Laguna. We (team 8) have the 4x8 swift with vacuum table and it has been so useful for plate parts this past year. The machine is well built and stood up to our misuse as we learned the do’s and don’t’s of CNC routers. As Anand mentioned, their support isn’t the best but once the machine is up and running you’ll be glad you got it.
If you want to get the Laguna. You should do it now or as soon as possible if you are hoping to get it up and running before season. The lead times are not great nor are the estimations they give you. I’ve heard they are great machines though. We ordered one last year, but it never came, even months after the estimated shipment date. We just got a refund.
I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents about our experience buying a router… We purchased a VR50-50 and it was delivered several months late. In addition we had to have their tech support visit our shop as the machine was delivered incomplete/inoperable. We also had some small issues with a limit switch wire not being crimped correctly causing the machine not to be able to zero consistently. Items we ordered were not delivered with the machine and were mailed to us weeks later. Our VFD for the spindle wasnt communicating with the machine which had to be swapped out, something that would have been caught at the shop if they tested the machine… We also had a different step motor placed on our z axis changing the height of parts we could make (not a big deal since we mostly cut flat plate). After all the bumps getting the machine up and running we haven’t had any issues since. Velox is a small company and we are fortunate enough to be only an hour away from their shop. Even with the short distance it took several scheduling attempts to get the techs out to our site to finish the work that should have been done at their shop.
In the end would we buy from Velox again… yes as we think it is a good machine for FRC purposes and holds a decent enough tolerance. In addition we are contemplating a second cnc router and would want to be consistent in our machines/post processors to reduce CAM training/errors. The main reason I wanted to share our experience is that the companies that are building these machines and not just purchasing them so you need to plan for their delivery date to slip and to iron out and hiccups.
I hope this helps as either choice will increase your shops capabilities. Also I am not sure about the actual size of the laguna but with our Velox we have a row of vises to allow us to cut tube stock and still have enough room for a 4x4 sheet of metal which is super nice.
If you have any additional questions I would be happy to answer them
Ordered and received a 5050. I like using mach 3 for the control software, feel free to send me an email.
If we were doing it all over again with enough cash on hand to buy a velox 5050 we’d probably buy two omio X8’s and run both at the same time.
This is really interesting to me-- you don’t think you’d need to make any parts larder than the X8’s platform? We’re currently fundraising towards a router, but thought that the size difference between the Velox and the OMIO X8 would be a significant benefit. One of the other mentors actually suggested potentially doing 2 X8s instead. Do you have alternate methods of doing larger parts, or just not see them as being as essential?
One of the reasons we are contemplating a second one is how fast our backlog of parts stacks up for parts that need to be cut on the router. Having two would be a huge game changer. So I agree with Adams point of view of two smaller routers would be beneficial. I think the only part we have cut that you couldnt do on an OMIO would be a belly pan for our 2015 robot. However you could still cut something super long with some crafty setups and multiple operations, IE cut one half, slide it over, rezero and cut the other half. Yes I know this is not ideal but definitely doable.
One of the downsides of the OMIO is that you cant have both a flat plate section and a row of clamps setup at the same time on an OMIO based on its size, or at least not without giving up a lot of valuable real estate
I would assume so. We went with a large router so that we could mill drive rails. If you already have a manual mill though, I could see just getting two smaller routers and heaping smaller parts on them. In general the amount of small parts we make on the router is way higher than the handful of large parts.