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Forum topic by AllanK | posted 11-21-2020 09:49 PM | 4245 views | 1 time favorited | 15 replies | ![]() |
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11-21-2020 09:49 PM |
Topic tags/keywords: cnc fox alien benchtop cnc beginner carving tool I want to start dabbling in CNC, but balk at the +$1,000 prices. Also, at 74 years old, not a lot of time to spend on a learning curve :-). I haven’t used CAD software, except for Sketchup. I watched the assembly video – piece of cake. For $300 this looks like good way to get started. Has anyone used one? Other opinions? Cheers, -- "Stupidity is forever, but ignorance can be fixed." |
15 replies so far
#1 posted 11-21-2020 11:27 PM |
It says it doesn’t come with the spindle so that’s a extra charge. Check out banggood.com they have a bunch of the small cnc machines like that. I was looking into buying one before I found the one I have now. The free softwares you can go ahead and download them to try out which one you like before you buy a machine. You might want to download one or more of the free programs and try them out before buying a machine. |
#2 posted 11-21-2020 11:43 PM |
It actually does have the spindle, and even comes with bits and Z-probe. Which one did you get? -- "Stupidity is forever, but ignorance can be fixed." |
#3 posted 11-22-2020 01:33 AM |
I see the bits it comes with but didn’t see the spindle in the package list. |
#4 posted 11-22-2020 01:40 AM |
Here is a bang good link |
#5 posted 12-04-2020 07:51 PM |
Did you end up buying one? |
#6 posted 12-04-2020 11:11 PM |
Yes, and I’m having quite a few problems getting it work correctly. On the plus side, the support is excellent, on the minus side it’s in China, so every exchange of emails takes a day. Good thing I’m not in a hurry. I also have a learning curve, having never does anything with CNC before. -- "Stupidity is forever, but ignorance can be fixed." |
#7 posted 12-05-2020 08:52 PM |
Yeah learning the programs is a bit challenging. But something will click for you and it will make more sense after that. |
#8 posted 01-31-2021 04:37 PM |
Hello gentlemen. So I recently bought a mini CNC router. Actually got it for Christmas, and I’ve been working on it since then. The only issue I’m having is getting the item I’m carving the right size! No matter what I do nothing will come out any larger then 1/4” !! I’m sure it’s a setting somewhere but I just cannot figure it out. Do either of you have any ideas I can try on mine? Thank you. |
#9 posted 01-31-2021 05:31 PM |
What software are you using to design your piece, and what software to drive the cnc? I’ve used Easel and Candle and they work pretty well. Haven’t tried Fusion360 yet – may be too old to spend time learning it :-) -- "Stupidity is forever, but ignorance can be fixed." |
#10 posted 01-31-2021 07:22 PM |
I’m using drufelcnc for my gcode and also run the cnc. What I’ve been doing as a test is…I pull in a image from clip art to my desktop. From there I drag the pic into the coding area of drufelcnc. Drufelcnc creates the gcode and I set all the settings (at least I think I do) and then hit start. Everything seems to be running smoothly but it only carves out the image the size of 1/4”. I hope I’m explaining this the right way. |
#11 posted 02-01-2021 01:24 AM |
Fusion isn’t bad to learn there are very good videos. |
#12 posted 02-01-2021 02:47 AM |
Thanks for your input. Yes I have already been through the manual more then once. I had a meeting with someone today that has some experience and he told me the drufelcnc software is just for laser etching. I’m not doing any laser so he had me try mach3 with lazycam. So I’m back to learning. I’ll keep you posted. Thank you again for the help. |
#13 posted 02-01-2021 02:56 AM |
Good luck finding a program you like to learn is a big part of playing around with a cnc. |
#14 posted 02-01-2021 03:06 AM |
This could be an issue with imperial and metric confusion. You might be sending a file that is 10” by 10”, but the machine thinks it is 10mm by 10mm. Try looking for a way to tell the machine to work in inches, or else scale everything up by 25.4X before sending it to the machine. -- Steve |
#15 posted 02-01-2021 04:35 PM |
cnckoke: there are a ton of settings in drufelcnc! How did you set yours up? Also, even though my 3018 is connected to the computer usb port, drufelcnc doesn’t see it. As for Steve’s comment, there is an inch/mm selector at the top of the drufelcnc window – did you select yours properly? Let us know how it goes with mach3 and lazycam. -- "Stupidity is forever, but ignorance can be fixed." |
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