Olaz Greener,
Welcome to the forum, the place to be to gain knowledge and goofballs. The latter signing in right now. Hi.
Nice introduction, great essay raising good points. You are walking the line for some time aren’t you?
I have done so myself a few years back when I got jumped by the goofy idea that I needed one of these machines I saw people tube these amazing projects on. I too went back and forth between wonky and expancive untill I found Sienci and their well built, reasonable priced products. Didn’t take long after that to cut the rope and learn to sail on the fly.
I went for a longmill 48" with laserbeam, a few starter bit sets (still using most of the more robust ones that didn’t snap that easy) and an auto toutch plate. That set me back roughly 5kcad including vat and import tarrifs into the EU.
Since you dont have to deal with those, you’re cost estimate for the setup you have in mind seems pretty close to me.
The longmill is a pretty good startyouupper with plenty of power (even with the makita router) to make a puch. I personaly am glad that when I needed to choose, the altmill wasn’t an option yet for I would have broken it or me with it.
The lessons I learned with my longmill were exciting, somewhat dangerous but never accute. The altmill is another beast.
So the one thing I am missing in your setup plans is the one thing that was missing in mine when I got going. Safety. You see, when things go sideways (there’s no if here.) they do that fast and furious, requiring direct action. That action, in the basic setup, requires you to rush towards a machine that is or is about to go beastmode on ya, in order to push a button -at the cage- that will stop it from moving, but not from spinning. Unless you make sure the e-stop cuts power to your makita, the danger part of your machine keeps going to spin at xteenthousand rpm untill you reach over and switch it off - 3 inch from the spinning cutter head.
My first hickup left me wanting to not go near the machine, let alone the makita. It was dragging my project up and down the machine bed with the makita stuck, no longer spinning, but bound to spring free at any moment with a possible bent surfacing bit in its chuck. It choose to belch out a cloud of smoke and kill the circuit breakers instead, leaving me in the dark - releaved. This experiance prompet me to install a seperate circuit breaker for the machine and the makita to trip at a lower amperage and to install a switch away from the machine that would kill all power to these circuit breakers, if needed. I have used it a few times now, mostly to prevent the machine to run a bit into clampings. (I watch the machine via a security cam in my office - where my kill switch resides.)
- If I would urge you to invest into something, it is to implement a safety feature that is capable of killing the entire machine, not just part of it - on your way out.
Worth every Canadian penny, I promise.
- Just for comfirmation sake and not to direct you to just this one webshop, youy can find most of your mentions besides a laser on here:
The reason why I direct to idc woodcraft is because the owner has a channel using these tool on a longmill, breaking it down for you step by step. That might be helpfull, no?
The laser units, I cannot expand much on. I own the laserbeam and I feel it’s a bit an odd one out. There are a ton of topics on other brands on this forum though. Most are waaaay more powerfull than mine, yet I personaly think power isn’t the thing to ~focus~ on. You have a cnc router - it cuts.
So look at dpi, focal length, focal depth, seperate lenses and compatibility, before staring yourself blind on -cutting- power.
- Table design. Oh my, nowe there’s a rabbit hole. Here’s some clues. It does not need to be level, nor square. You want a flat surface and a rigid frame and the machine to fit.
Extra perks could be: Casters, to move your machine around. Free forth and backside for larger tiling jobs. (you think 48inch will be enough for a sign? At first, sure, but sometime in the future you will thank yourself for being able to feed through larger stock.)
Foir ideas on table designs: looky here:
- Training costs. The short answer is jup, there will be.
The long one is, it’s a two way street. My first cuts where in some PIR isolation. You know, the sheep from sienci. I figured I could not break a bit in that material. And that is true. For the rest, the material sucks and I stepped right up to pine, for I figures that because it’s a softer wood, I would get better results. I did this for quite some time before I stepped up to harder wood and to my supprise, hard woods cut waaaaay more cleanly, waay more satisfying with waaaaaay less sanding work needed after using the cnc.
If I would give a tip on how to cut costs on your learning curve it would be - get some affordable hardwood planks like padouk or Angelim vermelho that has good specs on cutting machines and start making signs and bowl like products out of that using 0.25" end mills, Vbits and bowl bits. You know, the kind that don’t break when you look at them angry.
Don’t get me wrong, You can do the learning curve that is cncing on pine just fine, but boy, does a fine wood give a different fibe. And at the end of the day, the cost of -say- a sign is not in the wood. It’s in the time it takes to carve, sand and finnish. So sure, do some pine work, but don’t hessitate too long to up your game. You will see, feel and smell the difference without upping the risk much. Wood is pretty much wood on a longmill.
Hell, you could even visit a trift shop and get an old limpy oak table for a buck to strip down and try your bits on.