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.
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.