Thread: Chinese Machines now on Ebay

I believe Im a mate of rods, who started this topic, and after talking with rod on the side, I was going to commision him to make me a replacement commercial grade cnc router,

I have a couple of home made units Ive made myself, but have always liked rods work, and seeing the machines in action, I know exactly how much attention to detail rod gives, but as rod has said, he cannot compete with the asian market and advised me to buy overeseas.

Ive done quite a bit of research and have even now placed and paid for an order for 2 machines. The main issue with some asian suppliers is attention to the detail, they can build the machine super cheap but leave small stuff like swarf on the ballscrews, porrly hand tapped threads, not tight connections on the electronics and so forth. So if you are to buy one, before you fire it up for the first time you need to check all the slides ballscrews fittings and so forth..aned you will end up with a machine cheaper than you can buy the parts for

To take this further I got a small Chinese machine last week and concur with what Steve and Russell have said.

My experinece so far.

Ordering was easy through ebay and I had the machine within the week. Was sent through TNT and no fees were payable through customs.

It was well packed and the only damage was a slightly bent bracket that was easily straightenend by hand.
First impression was that the machine was good and seems strong enough. The manual you can throw in the bin - it is incomplete and not translated well at all. I winged the set up and got it running in no time at all. All except the forth axis which is likely to be a faulty driver board - more on that.

The supplied disk which had Mach3 and design software was uselesss. It loaded in Chinese and despite a couple of attempts pressing unknown buttons I gave up.
I have my own version of mach3 so that wasn't a problem for me.

I ran the machine for about an hour air cutting the Mach3 roadrunner in which time it started to clunk and groan. I ran over the machine and tightened all the cap screws and again was surprised how well it was desgned and pleased with the quality of the build.

I dismanted the Z axis which proved to be a chore as I had to drive out the linear rails with a drift. The clunking proved to be a split bush that was held in place with a set screw. The bush rotates slightly with each change in direction and as it is just a support for the main screw it is not causing any problem apart from an annoying noise.

The spindle is a waste of time being one of those cable driven work heads. The slop in the bearings of the head has meant that I will never use it on a CNC machine and currently waiting on an alternative spindle.

My ramblings are getting long so I will start a new post and continue.

So far the spindle is useless, the electonics suspect, instructions and supplied software totally unuseable but I still have a smile on the dial.
I expected this to be the case and really all I wanted was the mechanicals anyway.

I have not run a job on the machine yet due to the spindle but looking it over and hearing it air cut I expect it will work fine.

Back to the forth axis I tried every combination of the parallel port output pins and it simply doesn't work. I could have saved myself the trouble if I realised that the stepper motor was not energised so obviously there was a problem with the dirver board. Again not a biggy for me as I expect to replace the electronics and have gecko 251's, smoothstepper and C10 BOB to do the job.

Looking inside the electrical box it is neat enough but it has the look of cheap components although each axis has it's own driver board. I will leave it intact and run a couple of jobs with the original components before I replace the electronics - just for fun.

In summary if you are willing to spend more money and upgrade things then this is your quickest and cheapest path to CNC. There were no surprises for me and I consider these to be good value for money and a quality unit with cast components and ballscrews.

I have already copped a baking from mates for getting a Chinese machine so fire way at your will.

The reason I got one was to see for myself what these machines are like. I charge many times more for a machine than what I paid for this. My machines come with a stand, computer, console, etc but I cannot buy the bits for the price of their complete machine. When the large machine I am building is finished it is going to be my last but I still get lots of enquiries for machines so it had me wondering how good they are. The answer is good enough to buy but be prepared that they are a starting point and you will have to spend time and funds to make them bullet proof.

I will update Jobott soon as it leaves next weekend weather permitting.

This link will probably die in a few months but here is the link to the machine I got.

Rod,
Thanks for the details and opinions on the machine you bought.

I've been planning to make some form of CNC router but the for the last couple of years, life has gotten in the way.
Now I'm getting settled in Tasmania, perhaps this is the perfect way to get started. I have a G540, several G250s. power supplies. Mach 3 etc. so should be able to upgrade the electronics. That just leaves sourcing a suitable spindle.

Regards
Geoff

Hi Geoff,
Great to hear you are settled in Tas and hopefully fully retired now.

For a keeper I would go with one similar to these as they have a much better cutting envelope but be prepared to swap the electronics when they fail. No need to do it initially if it all works. This model has the VFD and spindle as well as ballscrew and supported linear rails on X axis.

A mate has just finished commissioning one of these for an industrial application and as a precaution replaced the electroincs with Gecko 540, smoothstepper and BOB. He fitted limits, touchplate and laser crosshair so needed to run new electronics anyway. He had the same impression as me about the quality although he did say it required some re-allignment to one ballscrew to reduce galling of the nut. Was easily fixed and luck of the draw as to how they come - maybe transport issues.

I don't want to build these up to be wonderfull but they are good value and will do the job. Considering it takes me four months of intensive spare time to build a machine compared to in one week I can have a reasonable running machine delivered for a lot less money I think it is a no brainer for a starter machine.

I don't think you would loose a lot of money if you sold one of these second hand on ebay so it is a fairly safe path to follow.

I want to see some classy box inlays if you get one.

Rod,

Once again, thanks. That machine has a more practical cutting envelope but is a bit more expensive - about $2270 (with GST) at current exchange rate (that seller has the same machine listed in $US for slightly cheaper).
Time the check the piggy bank!

Regards
Geoff


No so much retired as relocated and unemployed

Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

Rod,

Once again, thanks. That machine has a more practical cutting envelope but is a bit more expensive - about $2270 (with GST) at current exchange rate (that seller has the same machine listed in for slightly cheaper).
Time the check the piggy bank!

Regards
Geoff

Try making an offer first.

Bob

Hi Rod, I talked to my mate regarding spindles and he said he just went via the website and ordered from there, I believe this is the link to the spindle range that the spindle that is on my engraver, mine is a small power rating but is perfect for the engraver, and I believe the slightly higher power versions are not all that much more in cost...

PRODUCTS

I posted here rather than PM so that others may be able to use the info, as these spindles are quite nice for the money and seem a lot better quality than the Chinese stuff. Mine is the 150Watt version which is quite small but it was a perfect fit for the engraver.

If anybody is interested in seeing it in action, check out my Youtube video of "Sammy milling a PCB" very happy with the spindle, the larger versions would probably work well on a Chinese router.

Cheers.

Russell.

Nice write up rod, and having just gone through the purchasing I would concur. The ebay units are made for a price, a price we in australia cannot even get parts for, if your adept and know the basics you can certainly turn these units in to nice little work horses.

If you contact the manufacturers direct, you can start customising your desires, through rods help, I turned down the manufacturers spindle and upgraded to an italian 9kw spindle and so forth, they cost extra but the manufctaurers dont seem to mind, so long as they can make a sale and a mark up on any extra bits then they are more than happy to oblige

Originally Posted by simso

Nice write up rod, and having just gone through the purchasing I would concur. The ebay units are made for a price, a price we in australia cannot even get parts for, if your adept and know the basics you can certainly turn these units in to nice little work horses.

If you contact the manufacturers direct, you can start customising your desires, through rods help, I turned down the manufacturers spindle and upgraded to an italian 9kw spindle and so forth, they cost extra but the manufctaurers dont seem to mind, so long as they can make a sale and a mark up on any extra bits then they are more than happy to oblige

Is that 9kw or 0.9kw?

Yep 9KW Italian spindle with 8 auto tool change option, the other machine is a custom made unit with laser scanner attached 3.5million dot scan per hr

Originally Posted by simso

Yep 9KW Italian spindle with 8 auto tool change option, the other machine is a custom made unit with laser scanner attached 3.5million dot scan per hr

Sorry I thought you were talking about desktop cnc's, what size working area are you getting. I am very new to cnc, but must admit I have astounded myself how far I have come in a short time with the help from guys from this forum. I can envisage a larger machine down the track as this one will have paid for itself in a matter of months. If it's not rude! What was the ball park on the ATC 9kw spindle and what machine's did you end up ordering? Cheers Paul.

Yep, I remeber when I started

About 5 or 6 years ago, I saw a post of this cnc woodworking machine making plaques, it blew me away because back then it was unheard of having a small unit, the owner of the unit back then was yours truly rod.

I gave rod a buzz and went over to his place to have a look, wow...... went home ordered parts from the list he gave me and a couple of weeks later my first cnc was made....it was exciting times many plaques made many mirrors engraved and so forth.

I still have that cnc with a cut area of 600 by 900. But now own a commercial workshop and need something bigger, the unit I purchased has a cut area of 2550 by 1300 with 8 tool change carousel. The machine isnt to badly priced, without the tool carousel its the price of a hyundai getz, with the tool carousel it triples.