im weighing all my options for a small desktop cnc machine and considering price, and features, im just not finding much that im interested in other than the infamous chinese cnc3040..
what im looking for is a very small machine, to mainly cut wax and plastic but i would like to option(even if its slow to cut) that ability to cut soft metals on occasion.
i would like it to have 4 axis and the option of 5 now or sometime in the future.
i want the price to be reasonable and i would like it to be enclosed(i will build an enclosure for the cnc3040)
im just reading so many horror stories about the electronics being terrible and i just dont know enough about milling or electronics to feel comfortable with that but i really dont see too many other options.
i do not need the size or the power of taig and considering its for art and jewlery and nothing that would require it to be super precise, mainly wax milling, i just cant seem to justify the cost of an american machine, besides, the things i will be milling are tiny for the most part and when you factor in an enclosure, a taig will take up way too much room for what i need a cnc for.
i looked at the the nomad cnc and that would be perfect for me but 4th axis is not an option due to limited z and i was really hoping for a 5th axis if not now, at least an option in the future.
considering my budget is tight, and a 4 axis mill of the size i need just doesnt seem to be available, i just seem stuck on the cnc3040...its perfect for what i want a machine to do, its just a shame that based on what i reading, they are junk and likely to be a headache.
im posting here basically wondering if perhaps these posts are old and the maker of this machine maybe got its act together and began using better parts??
assuming they didnt, is there a less painful option when considering one of these?
are some machines better than others etc? im seeing lots of vendors and lots of options from various spindle power, water cooled or air cooled, different port options and it seems that all the bad reports i have been reading are from machines requiring the old style ports but i see now that they are available in a usb option...so im wondering if maybe these machines are being made better?.
anyway, if there is a "better way" of buying one of these i would love to hear suggestions, even if it would require me to buy the machine and replace certain parts that are known to be bad.
the cost of a 5 axis water cooled spindle machine is extremely tempting, it just seems perfect for my purposes and is in my budget but im reluctant to inherit a huge headache....perhaps these machines are available as a kit where i can build it myself and then swap out known to be bad parts for better ones?
i just dont know , im looking at kickstarter projects at the moment , and there are a few i could research but i got burned on a kickstarter 3d printer so im not crazy about that idea...i would love to head what you guys thing about this and what you could suggest.