Hey all. After years of wanting and saving, I have purchased a CNC machine! Since I don't have a precision mill, making one myself was out of the question, so I finally ordered a CRP4848 kit, legs, and electronics from CNCRouterParts. In total, the order was over $5,000 before shipping. I was so excited!
Unfortunately, I ordered the machine and parts over a month ago, and all I have received so far are aluminum extrusions from some third party company. That's right, 136 pounds of aluminum, sitting on my dining room floor doing nothing, for a month. The guy from CNCRouterParts emailed me once a long time ago with an update, saying he had no idea when the rest of the order would ship. Great update. Then another email when he told me it would ship in 5 to 10 days. Well, that email was 10 days ago, still nothing else shipped.
So I guess I'll review the parts I have already. First of all, the aluminum doesn't look precision milled at all. From the tool markings, it looks like they just used some sort of circular saw to cut the aluminum. Ridiculous! See the attached picture. What is the precision going to be from that, .063 inches maybe? I was hoping for 0.001 inches. Maybe I'm naive, but I thought parts would be precision machined for $5,000+ orders. Next, look at the holes drilled and tapped into the aluminum. I don't need calipers to see that some guy just eyeballed it. No precision machining or drilling whatsoever. Very disappointing. Of course, the aluminum hasn't even been deburred. Super. The entire reason I bought a CNC machine is because I don't have the tools to machine precision parts...and this is what I get?
I'll continue posting pictures and updates if and when I ever get the rest of the parts. I am most fearful for the linear motion component. I am hoping the ground rails will be accurate enough, that is my biggest fear. The pro machine was out of my price range, so this one will have to do. I'll post accuracy measurement when I have them. So far though, I'm disappointed in CNCRouterParts. Not just for zero quality control, but also for not shipping my order for over a month. If I would've known that, I would've bought elsewhere.