I started looking for a CNC machine when I was on parental leave with my youngest daugther about 2 years ago. As all parents know you think that you will have a lot of spare time when the little one sleeps, but that is never the case in real life!! ;-)
I should have known better since this was my second daugther, but no...
I finally choose the Stepcraft 840 from the Stepcraft company, an orange machine with a 600mm by 840mm working area. It arrived in a flat pack but with a very good assembly instruction manual! There was also several good assembly videos on Youtube.
So I had it up an running in about a week, total assembly time was around 6-8h if I remember correctly. Starting it up for the first time was very exciting! And after some tweaking, it actually worked, something that I had built!! ;-)
It is a rather sensitive machine and it will need constant attention and maintenance to function properly, but it will perform very well if well cared for!
I have mainly used it for milling, with a Kress milling spindle in the tool holder. I have also adapted a Cricut drag knife and, very recently, a 3.5W laser diode!
In the next post I will describe my laser setup!
