Laguna and General CNC Machines

[Russ Sciolino]

I went to the big woodworking show in Atlanta last summer with the intent of buying a CNC machine and visited almost every offering on the show floor. My needs were very specific, cutting of composite materials including carbon fiber panels, fiberglass work, some aluminum and wood panel processing. My background in engineering and design helped me weed out most of the that the salesmen passed out. Speeds and feeds seemed to be the only thing they were selling.

I looked at the current configuration of the machines and any possible upgrade paths available to me down the road in case i outgrew the machine or in the event of a complete retrofit what would be the easiest to work on.

Support is nice, but that to me is no reason to buy a machine. With the massive amount of controllers, motors and software available on the market those manufacturers are a great source of info or troubleshooting if my dealer fails me. My neigbor bought a Saturn SUV because of the local dealer support. A week later that dealer network was gone.

So my decision was tough and ended up buying TWO machines. A General Icarver 20" machine that I use exclusivly for sheet aluminum and Dovetail drawers. This unit was slightly modified to be able to cut dovetails, and easily converts back when i need to cut aluminum. I also use this machine for engraving and carving.

My second machine was a New Laguna SmartShop I 96" machine. This has a nice vacuum hold down and zero vibration because of its massive base. It is a well thought out design and future upgrades seem to be easily performed. The manual for the controller was poor, but that is really my only complaint. I searched thge internet and found a well-written manual that I use instead.

I expect problems and have had a few minor issues. Both General and Laguna have been great to work with. There were loose screws in shipping and some slight damage, but this is to be expected.

I did look at shopbot and some other popular machines but decided to buy what would satisfy my needs.

So to date I have had the General for six months and it has paid for itself 2x over. The Laguna was just placed on line last week and I have already completed about $2,000 of work. I would expect this machine to be paid for by the Fall.

I simply could not find one machine that would do exactly what i wanted.

[Jeremy Pense]

Support is nice, but that to me is no reason to buy a machine. With the massive amount of controllers, motors and software available on the market those manufacturers are a great source of info or troubleshooting if my dealer fails me. My neigbor bought a Saturn SUV because of the local dealer support. A week later that dealer network was gone.

We think alike. I'd rather buy a product that needs no support or is repairable by myself. Good luck to you!

[mark goering]

Hi Russ was wondering if you can do a follow up on the Laguna Smart Shop ... how it is performing and what type of work you are doing on it ??

I went to the big woodworking show in Atlanta last summer with the intent of buying a CNC machine and visited almost every offering on the show floor. My needs were very specific, cutting of composite materials including carbon fiber panels, fiberglass work, some aluminum and wood panel processing. My background in engineering and design helped me weed out most of the that the salesmen passed out. Speeds and feeds seemed to be the only thing they were selling.

I looked at the current configuration of the machines and any possible upgrade paths available to me down the road in case i outgrew the machine or in the event of a complete retrofit what would be the easiest to work on.

Support is nice, but that to me is no reason to buy a machine. With the massive amount of controllers, motors and software available on the market those manufacturers are a great source of info or troubleshooting if my dealer fails me. My neigbor bought a Saturn SUV because of the local dealer support. A week later that dealer network was gone.

So my decision was tough and ended up buying TWO machines. A General Icarver 20" machine that I use exclusivly for sheet aluminum and Dovetail drawers. This unit was slightly modified to be able to cut dovetails, and easily converts back when i need to cut aluminum. I also use this machine for engraving and carving.

My second machine was a New Laguna SmartShop I 96" machine. This has a nice vacuum hold down and zero vibration because of its massive base. It is a well thought out design and future upgrades seem to be easily performed. The manual for the controller was poor, but that is really my only complaint. I searched thge internet and found a well-written manual that I use instead.

I expect problems and have had a few minor issues. Both General and Laguna have been great to work with. There were loose screws in shipping and some slight damage, but this is to be expected.

I did look at shopbot and some other popular machines but decided to buy what would satisfy my needs.

So to date I have had the General for six months and it has paid for itself 2x over. The Laguna was just placed on line last week and I have already completed about $2,000 of work. I would expect this machine to be paid for by the Fall.

I simply could not find one machine that would do exactly what i wanted.

[Frank barry]

Hi Russ
Thanks for sharing the iCARVE looks very interesting as I amlooking to get a small cnc
What is the software package like to work with as I have littlecnc experience?
Good luck with your project
Frank

[Richard Coers]

Don't buy the iCarve unless you see one being used. It seems like an overprice hobby level machine to me. Proprietary software is never a good thing in my mind either. I was not impressed while watching one at a hobbiest woodworking show. The local demonstrator knew so little about the machine, that didn't help either.

[seth henry]

Hey Russ,

Probably an ignorant question - but how do you do dovetails on a CNC machine? Curious as to whether this saves time over the traditional router jig. Thank for any input

[Jim Underwood]

You need to have proprietary bits if you're going to cut dovetails on flat sheet stock.

https://www.vortextool.com/index.cfm...ategory_id=116

If you can fixture a piece to cut on the end grain, and your z axis has the capacity, you can cut a joint that is similar to a dovetail, but doesn't have the taper to lock things in place.

[Gary Campbell]

Seth... Here is a version with standard bits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aw4l...1E14D59038AC7B

[Rich Fennessey]

There is this way of doing this with a V bit, jig, and software. I found this from a post on camheads regarding dovetailing on CNC - really cool.

http://tailmaker.net/home.html

[stan kern]

cnc machine choice:
With a few years of owning a cnc machine and seeing support i would recommend the shopbot.I know a few shopbot users and the manufacturer and there forum members jump out to help one another