Just curious what anyone is using machine wise in shop?
I bought Laguna smartshop 2. It's been good so far as a wallet conscious CNC. It has a standard vacuum table, multi tool changer and welded frame. I found it simple to use so far. I learned on a Multicam, and it's was more user conscious. Biggest feature I liked about the Multicam was being able to "Z" both the spoil board and the height of the material. Those are features I miss, but can live without. I also was introduced milling on a ShopBot as well. Great for makers and someone who likes to full understand GCode and mechanics of CNCing, but the one I used was more primitive for software running it. I would say budget wise this is a great starter machine. I was shown a Biesse that Grimco supplies, and was very much not a fan of it. Although a beast, there was 3x more steps involved to run a simple program than the multicam or laguna. At the end of the day, I was able to get a new Laguna for the price of a used Multicam and it's been great for what I've been machining for standard materials. I've run V-carve Pro and Aspire on all the machines I've run and it's been seamless tooling between all of them.
I recently purchased a chineese 5x10ft with vaccum table and dust collector.
I was leary, but received machine no issues just had to rewire some things and change settings to work in states. With customs and fees cost just under 10k. Laguna is getting them from same supplier, I can get them with special colors and logos.
Direct from Chineese Manufacturer, Alibaba there are so many different chineese ones and read alot of bad feedback. I spent 5 months researching and got with manufacture that are now makeing them for us. I have a 5x10 with vaccum table, and dust collector that I will sell, as we now will have one comeing with our logo and colors on it.Alibaba?
The only thing I've done with my Bot in the last 15 years is upgrade the hardware package and add a spindle. Other than that it's been pretty bulletproof. New ones come with hardened rails that don't need much attention.With Shopbots you may spend more time tinkering than actually making money.
I'm assuming you have some sort of other upgrade included, not just getting another one for the sake of color/logos, right?
In any case do you care to share your supplier's info?