yeah, I’ve been reading up on CNC-machines. Obsessed even. The way you can be before a big build.
So what are my findings?
There are a few (what it appears) good looking small mills, if you want to CNC PBS’s and the such. They are not big enough for what I want though.
what it came down to in the end was the CNC Toolworks 12″ machine and the Probotix v90, they are similar in price and they seem to have the same amount of good reviews.
They cost about the same although I could not get price for freight from amazon. I hope it’s not the same flat rate as they use on everything else, because that is expensive 🙂
Finally I’ve decided for the Probotix V90, and then came all the rest of the questions. How do hook it up to a computer, what computer, what os, what programs would you use to make stuff with it, can you add lasers to it etc etc.
More reading and testing, seems like there are 2 players when it comes to controlling your CNC, either it’s a free Linux program or a crippled windows program. I’d like to run on os x, but that was not an option.
So I virtualized and started both of them (not at the same time) and both of them where ugly and looked unintuitive.
Also neither can run from anything but a stationary PC (no laptop) what is this, the dark ages?
Fear not, I’ve come to a solution, I will buy the V90 from Probotix, but none of the (use your printer port stuff) and the motors and arduino-motor shields from the maker-bot store.
The makerbot has even a g-code (language to control the machine) interpreter.
I will have to make some programming, it wont be much cheaper. I will probably not be able to use the available windows programs, but I don’t care, not really.
So soon, I will order stuff for a 1000 dollars
$204.00 + freight + toll from makerbot store.
$659.94 + freight + toll from probotix (for the v90)
thats $863.94