Hello everybody, I'm glad I found this place. I am totally new to cnc, although I'm reading/watching everything I find. The more I read the less I know... Everybody here talks about aluminium. I need to build a cnc that could be used for acrylic - cutting, engraving. I heard C- beam is more accurate. Smaller but more accurate. I would also use it for aluminium, pcb (small production and prototypes), wood. I design electronics devices. Is c- beem a good choice? Cheers
I've used my CNC to cut acrylic. It makes an awful noise and I cut at fairly shallow depths. I can cut about 2'x2' and I can stick the end of a 2'x4' sheet into it. It uses C-Beams for all three axes. However, it is almost certainly not rigid enough to cut aluminum because of its large size and construction. You can likely use the C-Beam Machine to cut aluminum. But the smaller size means it is less well-suited to something like acrylic that comes in huge sheets and would need to be cut down. So I'd recommend that you prioritize your list of materials. Make a CNC that works well for the material you care most about. A generic 'cut-everything' CNC is likely to be bad at cutting any particular thing. -D
Hello DanW. Welcome to OpenBuilds.com! If a larger cutting area is needed you may want to consider the C-Beam Machine XLarge. It can cut Plexi & Aluminum.
Thank you for the replies. I wish there was a list with all the different ways to build with pros and cons For now, I'm considering C-Beam XLarge. I'm planning to keep cutting the large plates with a hand router. Make acrylic/wood templates on CNC. And do all more complicated cut-outs, engravings on CNC. I only use acrylic for the products I design, but I'm just starting and I'm planning on using aluminium in the future. Is the £1k CNC good enough? I really like those V slots - looks easy to build + easy to upgrade. I will definitely use it one day. Just wondering if thats the best way to build inexpensive cnc machine.
