How much or how little

Bruce Page

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Location
Albuquerque, New Mexico
does it take to get into a used benchtop CNC router system?
I’m not interested in the Carvewright/Sears machines.

At this point I’m not sure if I’m serious or not…just wundering. :huh:
 
What are you looking to do with it Bruce? I suspect that your question is impossible to answer. The used market for CNC is more about big machines as far as I can see. Google "shopbot" who do a benchtop machine and , I think, have a used area on their site. How much will depend utterly on who wants to sell what at any given time and in a tiny market...

Otherwise, have you considered building your own? I am in the process of working out a design for a machine to fit my needs , which are not exactly benchtop but are also not well served by any commercial offering. Go to www.cnczone.com if you really want to get sucked into a vortex!:D
 
i`ve banged around on the site ian mentions for waaaay to many hours!
what i`ve dertemined is either a kneemill or a full sized router is the way to go....the mid-ground stuff i`ve seen really doesn`t trip my trigger.
a full sized table with vacuum holddowns and a cooled spindle will offer much more flexability than a router motor on low end linear slides..the problem comes with keeping one of those beasts fed....and for me learning the programing:eek:......stuff like used komos can be found for under 20k, and for my money i`d rather have used industrial than new hobby type equipment..
what are you lookin` to do with a router bruce?
 
Thanks Ian & Tod. I’m probably just fantasying more than anything else. I was wondering if you could pick up a small bot for a few k. I don’t want to go commercial just play. I’ll dig a little deeper.
 
I once owned a ShopBot, Bruce. Sold it when I moved from CA to AZ in '04. I did production runs of jigs I was selling. Lots of fun, very time consuming until it was productive. I just knew I would not have the necessary square footage where I was going.

But I poked around the cnczne site cited above and am sorely tempted to get back into it. But I simply do not have the time or space currently. Be forewarned, these things are very addictive! But tons of fun.

Also, even small bench top CNC's require considerable space. They really are not an 'against the wall' tool. And the periferals are space consumers as well. Hold down's, dust collection, computer, cutters, spindles, etc.

If you have the space, don't let any of this stop you. Have a ball!
 
Thanks Ian & Tod. I’m probably just fantasying more than anything else. I was wondering if you could pick up a small bot for a few k. I don’t want to go commercial just play. I’ll dig a little deeper.

I am sure that you can Bruce if you wait long enough and look hard enough. Truth is that there are a lot of folks looking for exactly what you are looking for and much smaller number selling. CNC tends to be a business purchase and the time that they get sold is when folks either go out of business or move up to bigger things. Not many people just lose interest. I have been looking for about two years for a machine that closer matches my needs but on the very few occassions that I have found one they then sell for near new prices.

If CNC routers are anything like most tools, a good used one will be ~ 50-60% of new. New ones tend to run $10-$30K.

Scott - the ones I have looked at which are sold commercially start at 10-30K and go a very long way up from there - like 10-15 times more. Cheaper used machines tend to be a generation or two old in functionality which may be fun to overcome but you have to be ready to hand roll the control code in some instances. Not my taste.
 
bruce, here`s a knee mill that a friend of mine owns, he has a rotary table for his......it`ll cut whatever you want to put on it...wood, plastic, metal?
http://www.fryermachine.com/toolroom/mb_q_series1.html

[edit] here`s a 5 axis wood router;
http://www.komo.com/CNC Routers/komo_5_axis.htm
and another;
http://www.scmgroup-usa.com/online_demos/morbidelli/x5_features2.html

Thanks Tod but those are a little rich for me.:rolleyes: Someday, I’d like to replace my conventional knee mill with a CNC. Maybe I should start saving my pennies now.
 
does it take to get into a used benchtop CNC router system?
I’m not interested in the Carvewright/Sears machines.
At this point I’m not sure if I’m serious or not…just wundering. :huh:

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I did a search on "CNC" and found this one. Since I just bit the bullet on a small benchtop shopbot (BT32 alpha "Buddy"), thought I would chime in with the latest numbers in case anybody was interested. Prices have dropped. They can now possibly be justified for even a small fledgling business on the side like mine here started 3 years ago. Bottom line, you can get a benchtop ShopBot 32 for about $4k base price. This is a relatively small machine though, and although it has the same components as their bigger bots, the table size (routable area at one time) is only 32 x 24 inches. In my case for what I plan on using it for, that is plenty, but for some that would be a limitation. The good news is that in a relatively small shop already full of cast iron, like my basement shop (23 x 29) this thing will get you into CNC only taking a 38 x 57 inch floor space. You will need some space for accoutrements of course, like a computer. But it can be easily run from a laptop so that's not a big deal. Shop vac for vacuum holddown and chip removal... I'm going to connect it to an existing 1200 cfm DC so that's nothing extra spacewise. I was holding out for one because of space limitations, but the BT32 is pretty compact.

I looked into it... used small benchtops are far and few between. Just not a big enough market yet where enough folks bought one and want to upgrade to a larger bot. Also found that many shops keep their smaller bot when they upgrade to larger one. Hey... two bots are better than one I guess.

Reality check and fine print.... that $4k gets you the base unit only. You will have to supply it with a good 3hp router ($350)... and then if you're not driving to NC to pick it up (AND paying NC sales tax), there is shipping. Then, the pricing could go up from there depending on how you configure it. Want a spindle instead of a router (much less noise, more MTBF)?... add $2K. Also, all Shopbot machines come it two flavors, PRSstandard and PRSalpha. Without getting into minutia, the alpha is about twice as fast and is geared (no pun intended) more towards 24/7 production runs. For the BT32 benchtop, the alpha is a little more than $3k more, bringing it's base price up to little over $7k, not the $4k price the standard is. Software packages (Vectra) are included with every bot. I downloaded the software from Shopbot and started getting familiar with it, went through a few of the tutorials. I'm no rocket scientist, and if you're even halfway computer literate there is no huge great learning curve there for the basic stuff like V-carving signs and making cutouts of stock for a project. Sure if you want to get into the serious 3D carving where you turn a photo of your face into a 3D carved face mask... that's another story. No, doesn't look like it's as easy as learning to write a term paper in WORD, but there is also an active shopbot forum similar to this where there are lots of folks willing to answer newbie questions as well as more serious stuff.

There is about a two month build time for these things. I ordered mine in early Feb, so it won't arrive till middle of April.

OK... just a little info for those that are (were) interested in CNC Shopbot pricing as of beginning of 2008.
 
Thanks Dave. I’ve run a lot of CNC machinery in years past even going back to the days before CNC where NC was new and you had to program, proof and punch your own paper tapes. I always thought that it would be a gas to have one just to play with. If I ever get into a larger shop I’ll definitely look into it again but since buying my Woodmaster last year, I barely have room to breathe. :(
 
Todd....I'd stop watching for the Komo's out there and concentrate on the MultiCam, Thermwood market for a used machine....something with a spindle such as you mentioned, tool changer, and a good table vacuum system....

And, don't worry about the programing. Once you get over the sticker shock of CadCam software, it is really easy to learn....I had half a day of training and was producing work for our cnc the next day. I found AlphaCam easier to learn than Corel Draw!

Amazing too how much work will come looking for you as the word spreads that you have a cnc, just producing parts for someone else. We were able within 2 years to keep 3 machines running 20/7.

Doug
 
CNC Router

Beleive it or not - I bought a used 24x24 Larker CNC router for $250

I had to fix it, but that was pretty easy. Final cost was about $400. After that I bought about $500 in carbide tools. So all together the router with a really really good set of tools was around $1,000 That is a REAL STEAL for a benchtop CNC router. I got a computer to run it for free.

Now you will need software to program it. V-Carve Pro is the best for the price. There are three modules. 1) to do 2D stuff like signs, vcarve stuff and any shape flat work. 2) photo carving. neat stuff, make Lithophanes in corian. 3) Full 3D programming Cut 3D.

www.vectric.com

You can get the software seperately, but the whole bundle is about $1000

So now I am up to $2000 for the Router, full set of all sorts of carbide cutters, and full blown CNC programming.

Still - that is a STEAL.

You CAN build your own CNC Router. Lots of people do that.

You will definately want to run some sort of dust collection.
 
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