Originally Posted by
Dave Cav
I'm in the same situation. I don't want to start out too small with a machine that will frustrate me, but I also don't have $5000 - $10,000 to spend on a serious hobbby/light commercial unit. I have spent a lot of time looking at the Onefinitity, X-Carve, Longmill, Shapeoko and the various Workbee offerings. I think there are at least three different vendors selling their own versions of the Workbee. My neighbor built a couple of small CNCs more or less from scratch, then bought the no motors Reforzell WorkBee kit on Amazon and added his own motors and controllers and is operating it with Mach3. He seems happy with the setup, but I need to have a more in-depth conversation with him now that I'm a little better educated. I'm looking for something with screw drive capable of being controlled with Mach3/4 or better, and, preferably running a spindle rather than a trim router. I'm in no hurry, and not adverse to putting it together from pieces, since I have someone close who has already done it and can probably keep me from making any serious mistakes. Right now I'm looking at something a maximum of about 36 x 36" due to space constraints, but later I could repurpose my wood storage area and fit in a 4 x 8' model, although it would involve a major upgrade to the shop, as my wood storage area currently has a gravel floor and is open on one side to the weather.