Introduction and a couple of questions.

[Nicholas Bukky]

Michael,
What type of CNC do you have?

And Andy did you end up getting a CNC?

Nick

[Michael Simpson Virgina]

mine are all DIY. I have a smaller 30" x 14" and am working on 56" x 60". I have had a chance to play with a couple very large cnc routers that are way out of my price range and well out of my space.

[Andy Birko]

Looks like next week I'll be getting an Xzero from George. I'm headed up to Toronto next weekend to check it out before I buy. To avoid paying gst I'm going to have him ship it to me rather than taking it home myself. I'm getting excited. I'm picking up the 24" raptor, square rails, with a 1.5hp Colombo and 8"z.

[Nicholas Bukky]

Good luck Andy!! If you don't end up with that one take a hard look at the Camaster stinger they have a lot of extra things you can add on later like rotary and vaccum tables and their customer service is bar-none! What ever you end up with cnc is a lot of fun!!

Michal I was curious because you don't like the center driven routers. I have had both. One an import (chinese) 4x8 that had duel drive and now a 5x10 CAMaster with rotary and ATC.
They both have the gantry that has a connecting plate under the table and I had good results out of the import and have excelent results with the CAMaster.

I guess it's mostly matter of opinion and what our wallet can handle!
Best,
Nick

[james mcgrew]

i was not gonna post on this yet nick brings out the best in me!! "The design will dictate how much it can be racked". the camaster uses a spread distance of 12+ inches between the hiwins the prevents any racking such as is described here, yea you can read the post, but while the joes is a great machine it is not in the industrial capacity of the camaster machine construction,

[Michael Simpson Virgina]

I definiatly agree the joes is not an industrial router. Nor is any cnc based on the 8020 stuff. The 8020 extruded aluminum is quite springy when you get into lenths greater than 4'. I decided to go a different rout on this new build.

Any single beam gantry is going to rack under load. Its phisics. It depends on the load and the design as to how much.



The larger routers I had a chance to play with at a cabinet shop (Sorry I dont know the MFR) had a double beam gantry. The spindle rides between the two beams. Its kind of like what you see on the mechmate. Its what I wanted to go with on my current build but my stepper motors and drivers jast are not enough to drive a gantry of that size and wieght. That design is rock solid and its whats used on many industrial cnc's and is why they can support the load of more than one router cutting at a time.

[Andy Birko]

Hey guys, after a long wait, I finally got the goods about a week ago and finally today had a chance to do a bit of assembly work. I must say it was worth the wait. This thing is solid as a rock. Admittedly, it's a little rough around the edges and is definitely "some assembly required" but, the rigidity of this frame is just off the hook. I went to a friends place a few months ago to check out a Romaxx WD-1 and while it's a mighty fine machine, this thing is just so much stiffer.

I spent about an hour adjusting the rails and have them parallel to the 8080 profile to within 3 thou for the full length of the rails. I checked the 8080 profile (which is pretty massive by the way) with a high quality starrett straight edge and by eyeball, it looks to be within a thou or two of flat. I'm sure that with a few more measuring devices I could do better but, I'm not putting together a metal working machine and I don't have enough environmental control to maintain tolerances better than that anyway.

I've attached a picture of the X ballscrew as well - 25mm In diameter!!!

Michael, I think you probably have to re-think what you classify as a "real" machine. In your previous post your write "Any single beam gantry is going to rack under load." which is true, but what's even more true is that any machine is going to rack under enough load, even your $100k metal working mills. The key is to size your components so that they won't significantly rack under the loads you'll be subjecting them.

In the case of most systems, they're only as strong as their weakest link but there are ways to compensate for weakness. E.g., my Xzero has 2x25mm Hiwin rails per side. The bearing is almost certainly way oversized for this application. The uprights are 3/4" aluminum and have a very rigid link on the top and the bottom. The gantry is so rigid, that it can operate just fine with a single ballscrew. As you say, it's just a matter of physics. This machine is so rigid that it could easily have the ballscrew off to one side and it still wouldn't rack at all under loads far exceeding those it will experience in wood working. Now, increase the size of this machine by 2x and throw some steel milling and sure, it will flex more than acceptable.

Now, if for whatever reason your rails and bearings aren't so rigid (e.g. home made bearings), you can compensate for it by using twin ballscrews to make up for that lack of rigidity. Don't think for a second though that it's absolutely required to have a quality machine.

Anyhow, to summarize, this is a very high quality and rigid machine. It is not turn key and a little rough on the edges but, if you can handle putting one together without an instruction manual, it's definitely worth considering. Unfortunately, I'm going to be traveling a lot over the next few weeks but I'll try and work on it and get pics posted as I get to it.

[Mike Heidrick]

Looks luke an awesome little benchtop machine. After seeing it and assembling it do you wish you would have just DIY assembled one yourself from 8020 parts and bearings/ballscrews available on the web? Seems to be a lot of these "kits" popping up. You going to mount some Echain on it for cable management? What controller did you end up going with? Also, if you want a good dust shoe already made Kent at Kentcnc makes a great one.

[Andy Birko]

Thanks Mike. Actually I'm quite happy with the package I got. George has shipped over a 100 machines now and you can see a lot of refinements based on those experiences. I also highly doubt I would have saved much money over what I spent anyway and then there's the whole time thing.

For a controller, I'm using a refurb dell I picked up for $150 combined with a Gecko 540. George already sent the e-chain I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still planning on making its own bench to which the chain will be integrated.

[Brad Knight]

Andy - just out of curiosity... I'm wondering about an apples to apples comparison. I'm curious of how much you will have into this, after the mechanical parts, electrical, computer, software - design and controller -

I ask because you can walk away for $6400 with a machine similar in size and have the pc, basic design software - and industrial type controller - with a welded steel frame from camaster...

[Andy Birko]

Hi Brad,

The Raptor is significantly less expensive. $6400 for the stinger gets you the machine and controller only, no design software, no table. I know because I got a quote from them as I was investigating.

For the Frame, controller, motors, 8" Z and table I paid $4500. The stinger doesn't come with a table so we need to back out $230 from the Xzero price for a total of $4220 All hiwin rails and bearings.
PC with Mach 3 was $300 total (but I should have shopped around a bit more for Mach 3, as you can find it for cheaper).
I purchased a nice enclosure for the power supply and gecko which was kind of pricey at $140

So for apples to apples, the stinger is $6400 ($6100 for Mach 3 control) and the Xzero is $4660.

Additionally, if you buy the machine from George, you can also purchase heavily discounted Columbo and Teknomotor spindles. I'm getting a 1 HP Tekno and VFD for about $550. Camaster's 1kW (a little more powerful than 1HP) HSD is an additional $1795.

I'm also not sold on WinCNC. I'm sure that it's a smoother controller but, any add ons are expensive where there's tons of free macros and stuff for Mach 3 as well as the biggest community around. It also sounds like the smooth stepper is very close to the quality of the WinCNC control board at only $150. I'm sure the next iteration will be right there (I'm going to run parallel port for now).

I'm not trying to knock the Stinger, it's a very nice machine and it was on the list. Considering I still have to purchase about $4 to $10k of software, pinching some pennies helps. I have no doubt that the Xzero is of equal to or higher quality of the Stinger and the difference in price is due to the refinement, CS and turn key nature of the Stinger. At the end of the day though, I decided to do a little more work to save over $3000 to a similarly configured Stinger (closer to $3500 for the WinCNC version). That right there will almost pay for a copy of Solidworks.

[Brad Knight]

I'm not sure what you mean by no table... no aluminum t-slot table?? The stinger does comes with a sealed MDF table.

Also, the stinger does come with cut-2d... not to mention the full PC loaded with the WinCNC hardware and software. Full PC being 19" monitor and whole 9 yards in addition to the separate control box that holds all of your power supplies, breakout boards, relays, estops - everything. It even has a spindle - yes only a PC router, but it's a PC router, Z-plate and mount.

So, for your $6400, the ONLY thing you have to buy is your end mills and material... and of course make sure you have enough power and a bench to put the benchtop machine.

Now, your at $4660 now... is that including axis switches, estop, relays, wiring, power supplies. You're still short a spindle - mount, e-chain... correct? And then there is time... I'm guessing we all charge differently for our time, but I wonder how much time you've got into the wiring, testing, configuring... and so on.

So, assuming that a bolt together aluminum machine is, "equal or higher quality" than a welded steel machine... then the difference between yours and theirs is, $1600 ($6100 to $4500 for a mach based machine)... less the $300 for the PC & Mach - and $140 for the gecko and enclosure...

So, that's less than $1200 difference?? And I don't know how much more you've got into power supplies, limit switches, wiring, etc...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not selling the stingers, I went with a bigger machine - indexer - whole 9 yards. I heavily weighed the options of building vs buying - kits vs building from scratch... I spent years making my lists and checking them twice. It's easy to come up with, like your $3000 difference (I'm still not following your math though) when you look at the big parts... i.e. frame and motors - but if you figure in the e-chain, limit switches, wiring, power supplies, keyboards, mouse, monitors... and the list goes one... then figure in the TIME (and each of us can assign a value to that)... the margins between the options goes away.

And... if anything goes awry it's nice to have a single point of contact to call and troubleshoot. I'm well experienced with electronics, motion control systems and the lot, but I'm new to CNC in specific... and that I can call one number to get advice, replacement parts for anything that breaks... is invaluable.

Anyway... thanks for the info. Your build looks great. It looks like you've got a lot of hard work into it and I always enjoy seeing the accomplishments of others. I'd like to see what you come up with and what kind of builds you come up with.

[james mcgrew]

i was gonna hold off on posting as i respect the fact that georges machines are a good start for the fellows who have little fear of electronics and motion, the joes is still my favorite in this catagory, for those wanting a complete package with massive support the camaster is obviously my choice followed by shopbot, dealing with george can (and all purchasers were not as lucky as andy) can be a bit precarious for the faint at heart. i have watched him for several years and to have sold 100 machines is a feat yet camaster did that in the first 8 months with all owners happy and accounted for. if there are any who are not they have yet to say so. 8020 kits are common and can be had at reasonable rates but like i said "not for the faint at heart", knowing what i know about the cost related to these machines georges margins are too low to be substainable and purchasers have had to wait for many month (sometimes without a return email or phone call until he is confronted on the net), his website is lacking in definative sales practices or any info for that matter and his forum is audited and censored, any one wishing to compare support can visit www.camheads.org or www.letstalkshopbot.com

to place apples to apples for a dollor amount is not all that is involved with cnc machine use. kinda like the V8 commercials it is only after the fact when one says "gee i coulda had a camaster" !!

ps a 1hp techno will never perform as well as a pc 690 2+ hp router please reconsider this purchase

[Andy Birko]

Brad, I re-checked the quote and I misread it. You're right, it does come with a PC router and Cut 2D but it doesn't change anything significantly. as I'm going for a spindle and need 3D software. The upgrade price for the spindle includes removal of the PC router so my final price difference of over $3k still stands. And yes, I am talking about a slotted aluminum table.

The $4500 included the following items.

Power Supply with wiring kit
Gecko 540 kit with motors
e-chain
Frame
Extruded T-slot table

I forgot that yes, I opted for Hall Effect limit switches which added a couple bucks and I bought separately and the wiring for the enclosure for which is about $30 total.

Let's talk price as configured:

I spent $4500 on all that,
Add $300 for a computer with Mach 3
Add $140 for power supply
Add $200 for misc junk
Add $550 for Spindle and VFD.

We get a total of $5690

For a similar package with a stinger, we get

$6395 for the basic machine
Add $1795 for spindle
Add T-slot table for $250
Spindle Contro for $195
Auto Z pad for $95

(Spindle control on the WinCNC is $195, free on Mach 3 (well, the cost of 2 wires leading to the VFD). Auto Z probing - free on Mach 3 (cost of one wire plus a scrap of some conductive plate), $95 on WinCNC).

Total $8730

That gives us a difference of $3040

List price on Cut 2D is $150 so you might be able to back out like $75 from the stinger price as well.

I don't really want to argue about machine quality but I will a little anyway. Bolted together aluminum is not automatically inferior to welded steel. Strength and rigidity is a function of material selection and geometry. If you dropped in geometrically identical aluminum pieces into a welded steel design yes, you'd have a noodle for a machine. With appropriately sized components, you will have an equally rigid structure at a lower weight using materials such as Aluminum. On top of that, it's easier to make things square by facing and bolting than it is by welding.

Anyhow, I'm not sending my Raptor back and I'm convinced I have a very good machine at a very good price.

[Andy Birko]

ps a 1hp techno will never perform as well as a pc 690 2+ hp router please reconsider this purchase

Do you know this from personal experience?

There are guys on another forum who've made that switch and give me exactly contrary advice.