CNC machines are all the rage these days. They offer a lot of capabilities, possibly leaving you wondering if you should consider one for your shop. Here’s a great overview of what benchtop CNC machines can do.
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I have been looking at the low end machines $250 – $800. I figured they will let me learn how to learn how to get an image from idea to a cut piece without pouring a ton of money into it. Also if I would not have time or lose interest I would not be out a lot of dough.
Where is the fun in that? I guess its fine if you want to mass produce products but I take pride in the fact that everything I build is one of a kind and made by me not a program in a robot.
I like the rep’s Cheshire cat grin at 2:15 when George asked the “how complex?”
That’s the greatest drawback with these machines … software geeks woodworkers aren’t. And not many woodworkers under 50 want to spend thousands of man-hours just trying to master the rudimentaries.
CAD/CAM packages from companies like Vectric and ArtCAM really minimize the learning curve as well as the expense. There are excellent training videos and great user forums for the software, and for the machine manufacturers such as ShopBot and CAMaster.
personally I love them, I have a bench top model (not shop bot) and it’s great allows me to do in minutes things that took hours before