I have two of the Avid machines, a 4 x 4 and 4 x 2. They both work great, and I am pleased with my investment.
David
I have two of the Avid machines, a 4 x 4 and 4 x 2. They both work great, and I am pleased with my investment.
David
The upgrade of the Pro Series from V-rollers to linear guides was a tremendous improvement. So there's another little data point to consider when shopping. With the V-rollers, I was constantly scraping crud off the rails, and they were never straight to begin with. Other than it being a light duty machine, and I was doing some pretty big stuff, the rails were my only real sore point from a mechanical point of view. Other than one having a twist in the gantry rail, and the other a bow of about 1/32".
I had the newer one jacked up to cut molds that were 16 or 17 inches tall, running the CNCRP (Avid) spindle with a 10" long solid carbide 1/2" ball endmill. I think they built us a custom Z slide with 15" of travel, and I used nearly all of it. You know you're in trouble when you have to model the router in CAD to determine how high to lift it.
The molds were about 5 feet wide (I split them down the center), and about 14 feet long (2 sections there as well). Probably somewhere between 6 and 700 lbs per side, I'm guessing. It took 3 or 4 of us to lift a quarter section up there. And the machine didn't seem to mind a bit.
Mine are both the Pro series - like these: http://www.cncrouterparts.com/pro484...b83tull1epl8j2
David