Thread: CNC3020 first steps..

Hi Ray,
Thanks for the video. Talk about jumping in at the deep end - 3D cutting first weekend.
As you say the machine would benefit from a more powerful spindle and a bit more speed for the smaller cutters but at the price of the machine I think they are good value.

I would imagine the cutting envelope of the 3020 would be an good size for making your casting moulds. Given the lower spindle speed of the HM52 and me not wanting to cut composite materials on a mill I think this machine will be a valued addition to the workshop.

Neat looking machine you have there Ray !

I don't know what kind of drives came with your setup but I know the Chinese router my mate got had pretty ordinary drives and didn't perform all that well, until I swapped them out with some Gecko G251's for him and it is now a completely different beast, great speeds and good torque. It seems it is a bit of a lottery as I know of another friend that had reasonable success from the supplied drives.

Cheers.

Russell.

Thanks Russell,

I haven't looked at the drives, but I wouldn't be expecting too much for the price, on the other hand the mechanicals seem pretty solid, Gecko's would be a nice upgrade, and a better spindle motor wouldn't hurt either...

Thanks Rod,

I took your advice and got some bits and pieces to try some engraving, I've got some front panels to do, so that will be one of the next things to play with.

Regards
Ray

Hi Russell,
Do you have a link for the 400 watt spindle you put on your machine. I would think they would be a good match for this size machine.

Hi Ray,
Sounds good - look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Hi Ray, you certainly get pretty good bang for your buck with some of these Chinese machines, and if you need to update a few drivers then that is not a huge deal.

Hi Rod, good idea, here is the link to their website :

ELTE srl

Off the top of my head my spindle is 150Watt and runs to 24 000 rpm, only a small motor but Elte make all sorts of sizes and types, I did get distracted and found some nice toolchanger models

The website is a little difficult to find exactly what you want but my mate that uses them has found them good to deal with and uses their spindles on commercial machines that need more reliability than the Chinese spindles offer. The price wasn't over the top either.

Cheers.

Russell.