I think that's the logic that you'll hear. If you can get an order for a new building, you can easily pay for the machine in one job. It's not uncommon at all to get a job that completely pays for the machine itself.įor instance, take Corian signs. You can land a couple of jobs, which don't tend to be in the $10 range, and you are done, it's paid for. I think the advantage to CNC machines like ShopBots are that they are inexpensive. When I look at what it takes now, it's night and day. Manually and with CAM programs, high end CAM programs. I programmed CNC machines for many years. Draw it, tell it the end mill size, set your Z, click an icon for cutter direction, and hit go. I know others here use both and am curious if I'm on or off track.ĭoug, have you been around CNC's lately, I mean the new ones they are marketing to people who would buy a laser as opposed to the metal cutting ones used by machine shops?
![enroute 4 material set up enroute 4 material set up](https://cdna.4imprint.com/prod/700/546211.jpg)
The above CNC process was overly condensed and doesn't even take into account machine settings, fixturing, part cleanup, etc. Well almost.ġ) draw illustration in Corel, Illustrator or other vector programģ) set power/speed/frequency/resolution and a few other settingsġ) draw illustration in CAD program or import from other vector programĢ) open drawing in a CAM program and create tool paths accounting for cutter diameter, cut depths, directions, speeds, etc.Ĥ) edit g-code for machine specific parametersĥ) back plot to visualize and debug cutting process I'm not even sure everybody has the capacity or patience to program CNCs. Doing actual money paying work would be many months behind the laser. They are nowhere near as easy as using lasers. They have at least twice the steps from design to part, require expensive software, and have an overly steep learning curve.
![enroute 4 material set up enroute 4 material set up](https://cdn1.epicgames.com/ue/product/Featured/AutoMaterialSetup_featured-894x488-7153c9b9b6427efce9a07b13a90c6fa3.png)
I can see the point if it's regarding job requests but CNC routers are completely different animals. I've heard quite often that if there was a choice between the 2, the money maker from the get go is a CNC router.