I’m doing a survey preparing to upgrade my CNC to a 48x48 machine. I’m considering AltMill, Onefinity PRO Series Foreman and Shapeoko 5 Pro. Any feedback, pros/cons of each would be appreciated. Thank you.
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Hey Rambo,
Welcome to the forum.
I own none of these machines and am only slightly known with the altmill because people on this forum own it and post about the beast and make me all green grumpy and smile like I have a rotten teeth.
What I miss in your post is what you are going to do with the machine, what you expect the machine to be capable off. You know, a bit more detail on why and how you compiled the list of machines you posted and maybe elaborate a bit on machines you considered, but didn’ make the list.
There are a few youtubes on comparing machines. I believe theres one on altmill vs a onvinity. I bet there are more out there comparison vids out there to look into.
So I can only add a sidenote as to what makes sienci a good or bad company to go with.
As all fast growing companies, it has its problems.
There is a backlog when ordering the altmill so don’t expect a order now, recieve tomorow timeline for the altmill. In a hurry? Remove the altmill from your list.
Sienci is a canadian company. So if yer ordering into America, there’s tarrifs you might get slapped with. At the moment shipments get delayed at customs. Better take that into account. It’s a bit unclear and messy atm.
Sienci goes above and beyond. If there’s a problem, your problem will get solved.
Sienci has a huge information library on their products. The whole bunch is open source so if there’s a part that’s 3D printable you can get the files for free.
If you need spare part, you can look up what you need, and source them anywhere.
That’s about what I can contribute.
Hope you get the best machine for your buck! Good luck, there’s a lot to consider.
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I might be uniquely equipped to provide some insight on this question. I own both a Shapeoko 3 and a Onefinity Woodworker. After some recent weirdness and unhappiness with Onefinity and how they do business I think I’ll be moving on from their products and to an Altmill. My 2 cents on each product below:
Shapeoko - I got a Shapeoko 3 in 2017 (I think?) and ran it pretty hard. I was a huge fan of it but as the hobby space evolved the belt and v-wheel design became pretty under powered and obsolete. I know the new Shapeoko designs have ditched this for this reason, but I still don’t think I would purchase a Shapeoko 5. The main reason for this is the Carbide Motion software. I’m really not a fan of it. Their whole ecosystem seems a little bit too closed off for my liking. It feels almost like buying an Apple product. It’s cool, sleek, shiny, and definitely a fantastic product, but it just doesn’t jive with me personally.
Onefinity - Great machine. Super sturdy, don’t have any major complaints other than with the company themselves. If I was in the market for a machine today I wouldn’t get another one due to the design and the price. Being Canadian, with them charging in USD, and the shipping prices being pants on head insane is the deal breaker for me. The idea of spending almost $1500 dollars to ship a machine two provinces over makes my skin crawl. The upgrade path they offer is also a really cool perk, however the price to do so is so crazy, I don’t know why anyone would. If also wouldn’t recommend going the route of buying a ‘Pro’ series machine at all. Software is definitely not their strong suit, and since they’ve forked to their own version of the Buildbotics software, and have their flagship models running off of Masso, you’re kind of stuck with second rate software that will never get to modern hobby CNC standards.
Altmill - Obviously I don’t own one yet, but the reason I’m making the change is pretty simple. I love the design, and how open Sienci is. I can literally download the model for all their products and make any tweaks I want to make to the design. I haven’t even ordered the machine yet, and I have a full wasteboard and dust boot system designed for it. I had to measure and model the Onefinity machine when it was delivered to have my own reference of the design. I do mechanical design professionally, and the design the mech team has put together for the Altmill is pretty much bang on how I would do it myself. Nice and simple design, but super robust. The two rail design on the Onefinity makes tramming the machine a nightmare. I can either get mine trammed perfectly in the center, or at the extents of the axis, never both. The Altmill design seems like this will likely not be an issue, and if it is, making my own modifications to fix that issue will be much easier. Also the GSender software seems like the perfect level of complexity for Hobby grade work. Masso is nice, but I find it to be massive overkill for what most of us home gamers are doing.
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I recently had the exact same decision, I needed a machine primarily for long relief carving jobs, but I also only have a small single garage shop.
I didn’t fancy the high sided onefinity, plus didn’t want the masso controller sticking out in the middle of my space. I have no mechanical design experience, but I found it strange they offer a third bar for the X axis to make it more rigid, makes me think it’s not rigid enough in the first place.
I also used to have a Genmitsu 4040 pro, which follows the same design principles as the onefinity, so I know how flexible the X rail was.
Forums also suggest the motor on onefinity can’t hold a spindle from dropping when powered off, and it isn’t strong enough for a big spindle.
The onefinity also has smaller motors, one of the reviews linked above demonstrates that for relief carves it’s half the speed of the altmill, so it was a no brainier for me. He also mentions in the review that onefinity are releasing firmware to allow the motors to speed up, and they’re discounting the machine, which I read as them trying to complete with Sienci, knowing they’ve been outclassed.
Now that I have my Altmill, I definitely made the right decision, its rapid.
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I have a Onefinity Journeyman. The machine is super sturdy and more or less well designed. The controller is absolute garbage and the company is a dumpster fire.
If you look on the 1f forum it’s only positive comments. That’s because they actively delete any negative comments or criticisms and they actively block people if they thing you’re being too critical.
They sold a nice machine with a super crappy controller and then told everyone how great it was and wasted hours of my time upgrading and downgrading the firmware to no effect. Myself and many others now run an older mostly stable but clunky version of the firmware that mostly works. I’m afraid to upgrade. When I say it took weeks of my time, I mean weeks.
Anyway I really don’t know much about Sienci but they seem pretty upfront and the machines look well thought out.
For me a big plus is the stand is included. My 1F is on a kreg table which ends up taking up like 12" extra in each direction and I could really use that space.
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Thank you all for the very helpful responses. Many of the negatives/positives I agree with, as well (Shapeoko being a closed architecture, the rail stability, company support, community support, etc.). I’d prefer the AltMill lead time to be shorter. The Vortex Rotary is also of interest, and if I pull the trigger on the AltMill, I’ll add the Vortex. I hope the tariff issue doesn’t affect the order if I place it; the total as of today doesn’t reflect anything. And I’m mystified as to why shipping province to province in Canada is so high; that’s almost worth a road trip to pick it up. And my usage is for my furniture work. Many components I cut on my CNC for accuracy and repeatability. At times the table size on my Shapeoko limits me, and I no longer want belts and V wheels on the X/Y due to accuracy issues. I cut non-ferrous metal at times, and my current machine struggles. The feed rates I have to set the toolpaths to are very slow.
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I’m far from an expert, but my situation is similar to others. I have a Onefinity Journeyman, and I’m generally happy with the mechanicals. I chose to buy without a controller, since I felt that their controller options are all overly expensive for what you get - instead I’m running with a Super Long Board (this took longer to get dialed in than I expected, unfortunately). I’m really only just working through the learning and moving on to ‘real work’.
If I were buying today, there’s no question that I’d go with an AltMill. Mechanically the best design in the segment, GrblHAL controller architecture, a company that seems to be very open and IMHO focused on high-value functional solutions.
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All the responses already made I pretty much agree with, especially the part about the Buildbotics controller.
I started with the Scienci 30x30 and really liked it, but like others I outgrew it and wanted Ballscrew drives without V wheel rails. When I was ready to move up, Scienci was just producing the MK2 Longmill which didn’t eliminate what I didn’t like about the MK1. So, I opted for the X50 Journey and did get the BB controller because I liked the idea of it being a stand alone controller, but I soon found out it didn’t even support setting work stations as well as other standard CNC functionality. The only thing I liked about it was the game controller for setting up positions.
I really liked Scienci’s gSender and the Longboard controller with the Longmill 30x30, so I bought their SLB controller with a gControl Panel and that solved the BB controller problems. So if you do go with the Onefinity, buy it WITHOUT a controller, besides being way over priced, you can get the SLB with Scienci’s new gControl Panel and have a really nice machine. Which is what I have. I call it a Scienci 1F.
My recommendation is to get the Altmill, it’ll be worth the wait. Scienci is really good at gearing up production once they have their product worked out.
Also, Scienci’s support is 2nd to none.
Hope this helps.
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Competition? There is no competition… at least if you factor in price. $2000 more for any comparable 4x4 benchtop machine. And that’s why you can get any of the others in a week or two but you’ll wait months for an AltMill.
Based on what I’m seeing in their order spreadsheet you’re looking at an October delivery if you order today. Figure… there are 425 orders in process today. They shipped 53 in the last 30 days. Just doing the math it means that we’re looking at an 8 month wait.
Manufacturing doesn’t work like this. You can’t do a straight line extrapolation and say that’s that. They could be waiting on a single component that is holding up production. So they might only be able to ship 50 in one month, they get a restock of parts, and can ship 250 the next month.
Not saying that IS what’s happening, but I wouldn’t draw a straight line through a single data point and call it anything other than a guess. They have estimated delivery times much earlier than October, and they know their supply lines. I’d tend to trust what they’re estimating.
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April will tell the tail. The spreadsheet claims they will ship 190 between now and the end of April.