I plan on doing custom signs, military plaques for our veterans, and other home decor items. I have a lot of ideas for other stuff and canāt wait to get the CNC. I already have several jobs with saved tool paths ready to run.
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So far, mine has been an object on which my wife stubs her toe and curses me for leaving a 60lb box in the middle of the laundry room. I remind her that I left it in the middle of the living, and it was her brother that put it in the laundry room. That doesnāt usually helpā¦
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well i donāt know about you guys but i plan on making a $1.000.000 bucks with mine in the next five years.
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If it makes her feel any better, mine is actually in the box in the living room and has been for a few months - sadly. Hopefully today that will change. Iāve been wrestling with mall mounting it for the past few days, and need to post some questionsā¦ which reminds meā¦
-Jeff
Thanks for sharing, i plan to do signage with mine. is the software easy to learn?
Welcome to the fun. There a literally hundreds of software titles you can use to create, edit, alter, convert, etc. an idea or file into machinable gcode. Everybody has their favorites so youāll get a lot of opinions - and theyāre all correct.
To get started you can use Carbide Create, which is a good starting point for 2D projects, and will do a good job with signage. Try Inkscape if you want to convert a graphic into vectors so you can machine it. Remember the program that creates your gcode needs a vector file, so raster files like jpgs and pngs need to be converted to vector files first. At the top of the complexity list are programs like Fusion 360 and Blender. Experiment to find programs that work for you.
Donāt hesitate to ask questions. Just about everybody on the forum started out with little cnc experience, and theyāre all willing to help you out.
Good luck. Stay in touch.
Bill
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New to the forum so excuse me if I bleep thing up.
I have quit my job as a micro electronics repair dude last november to go and try to start a shop with a cnc machine. I ended up buying the longmill 48x30 with the laser add-on.
I made a basic workbench that is able to rotate from the wall into the with of my garabe to be able to work longer projects that cannot be processed when the machine is tugged in a corner. The machine is setup in working order but all wires and electronics are all over the place. I couldnāt resist to start some fooling around though.
I have done the simple sheep carving into foam - just to be save - to check the machines is setup ok. Right after that I went and installed the laser unit and went straight into weird experimental mode.
My girlfriend sells eggs in a small road side shop and I stole a dozen eggs to see if you can laser them without explosions. To my dissapointment the answer is yes.
I learned that when you laser brown eggs, the image turns white and that the laser focus can work on curved objects.
I plan to spend a year learning to work with this machine, fooling around, playing and upgrading it, building a portifolio while fooling around.
For now the only thing that will be sold are amazing themed eggs like valentines-eggs, Easter-eggs, Summer-eggs, Helloween-eggs, Winter-eggs and Christmas-eggs. I call that an unexpected weird experiment result.
Butā¦ can I engrave eggs with the miller?
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May I suggest a video:
https://youtu.be/-reSew5u5Oc?si=uD4EsmqGhL3Dgmrc
I donāt know if this will help, but he did the vertical drop on his machine
@Hms1018 Thanks for posting this. I subscribe to Dennisā channel and had seem this before. His budget, engineering expertise and ambition far exceed mine. 
The original conversation about vertical beds and rotary axes is almost 4 years old. Since then, I have modified my table to accommodate vertical carves and added the Vorted to my accumulated toys. With all that, Iām nowhere near where Dennis is.
Selling it as soon as possible, and then getting a machine that can be trammed properly.
@Chaosweaver Itās really unfortunate that you feel this way. You have produced some fine work with your LM. I hope that you enjoy your new machine.
Had mine for a little over a year now. Use it in quite a variety of small projects to sell. Now I am trying to get out projects for a blog post on my website and email newsletter about once a week.
Really like the machine for at its price point. Iām sure there are heavier ones out there but it works for well for my application.
Iām working on a side business, figuring out new ways to combine CNC, laser, epoxy, slabs, and reclaimed wood from our 4th generation family farm.
One of the justifications for investing in the largest Longmill was slab and tabletop leveling. $400-$1200 for good quality router sleds vs $2000 for a machine that can do it while I do other work that happens to also be able to make all kinds of cool things as well. Seemed like a no brainer since it was in my budget.
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