What's your favorite desktop CNC mill?

[626Pilot]

I'm thinking of picking up the Zen Toolworks 12x12" CNC. After the controller package and a parallel port card it looks like about $1,000. Was wondering what other people around here like. Zen is sort of the default for me because I found it on Amazon and it isn't ridiculously expensive, but I don't know what else is worth looking at.

[grabredemeyer]

I've followed http://www.mydiycnc.com/ ever since they had a KickStarter quite some time ago. I've always thought it looked like a pretty decent solution at a good value. I would end up upgrading the spindle (I believe they actually sell an upgrade to a more "professional" spindle now)...which at the original cost of the machine, the added expense of an upgrade wouldn't be so bad. I've heard decent things about the machine. You might want to give them a look. Note, if you don't care to build it yourself, it is quite affordable to buy the machine pre-assembled as well.

Update: After further inspection, they do offer upgrade spindles now (or you could get something better elsewhere) and also now offer a larger footprint machine that you can get assembled for under a thousand that appears to be a bit more rigid than their earlier designs. I'm pretty interested in running a desktop machine as well and will follow this. Hopefully others can weigh in with experience.

[gestalt73]

If we're going to loop in Kickstarter type machines, here's one that I'm keeping an eye on:

http://makezine.com/2013/09/23/pocketnc ... -axis-cnc/

http://www.pocketnc.com/products

Looks to me like a novel take on 5-axis, should be retailing for $3000.

I'll look up mydiycnc as well, it's only a matter of time until I branch out into "subtractive" manufacturing.

[626Pilot]

That thing looks awesome, but I need a bigger footprint. I want to be able to mill PCBs and lithophanes, probably more stuff down the line, and it's better to have a larger footprint so I can run off multiple boards on a single piece of copper-clad board.

I also want to mill wood, but I'm getting a CarveWright for that since it has a tractor feed.

[626Pilot]

I decided to go with the Probotix Meteor. They will extend the narrow dimension up to 36" for an extra $300, so I'm getting a cutting area of 50x36. It came in under $5,000 with freight. They respond to emails quickly and intelligently, and they seem to know who makes the best spindles. Len pointed me to Wolfgang Engineering for a very low runout spindle for PCB milling. I hope it works as cool as it looks. I'm getting a DeWalt DWP611 router (with LEDs, even) for wood.

[bubbasnow]

I decided to go with the Probotix Meteor. They will extend the narrow dimension up to 36" for an extra $300, so I'm getting a cutting area of 50x36. It came in under $5,000 with freight. They respond to emails quickly and intelligently, and they seem to know who makes the best spindles. Len pointed me to Wolfgang Engineering for a very low runout spindle for PCB milling. I hope it works as cool as it looks. I'm getting a DeWalt DWP611 router (with LEDs, even) for wood.

How is this working out? i was looking at the v90