Looking into CNCs for 20k or under.

[CC-CMYK]

Does anyone have any advice on a 4x8 CNC that’s under 20k. I’m looking into Avid. However, it would be nice if I could find a machine that could be upgraded to have a registration mark camera.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

 

[fixtureman]

20k is a low price hobby machine now, Yoy may be able to get something from China for that but even the Chinese machines a little higher.

 

[kcollinsdesign]

$20k machine will not be appropriate for profitable sign production. To compete you will need to make a lot of signs, buy and warehouse truckloads of materials, have a vacuum and air cleaning system (the dust from wood and foam is toxic), have an acrylic polyurethane painting system and ventilated spray booth (check you codes), shipping department and contracts with several forwarding companies, lots of climate controlled space, and a ton of employees, managers, administrative and sales help and everything else needed to run a production business.
I would recommend outsourcing production until you are doing at least $.5M/year exclusively in dimensional signs (unless this is a hobby and you just enjoy doing this).

 

[jfiscus]

Ours was around that price about 5 years ago, not sure where it is now though. It came with a camera for doing registration-based cuts, but we've never used it for that. https://www.visionengravers.com/products/cnc-routers/VR48-cnc-router-engraver-machine.php