Thanks to AndrewLekashman for starting this poll! We've contacted the vendor on your behalf and they've made the Bigfoot Desktop CNC Machine available.
Bigfoot is live, Sprite is coming in several weeks, but as I always say - Biggest CNC is best CNC. Thanks for voting everyone, and keep making polls so I know what to hunt for!
Why is the SO2 blanked out in the polls? Surely if people want the SO2 it should be reflected in the polls (not disabled), otherwise everything else looks wrongly more popular?
I just got off the phone with them, and if all goes well, we will have a listing up within the week.
However, they have no inventory for the Sprite right now, its about 4 - 6 weeks out, but a shipment for their #1 selling CNC machine, the Bigfoot Kit just came in.
So, here's how I'm going to do this. This week (or early next week), I'm going to list the Bigfoot Kit, and as soon as I have confirmation on the Sprite, it will go up.
I think you should read some reviews and user experiences of MyDIYCNC purchasers --- there've been a number of people who started w/ it, then switched over to using a ShapeOko.
There isn't a single feature or add-on for any CNC mill which can't be adapted to any other, so they're all pretty equivalent in terms of the potential things which they can do (though one might not have much of the original machine after some upgrades which essentially become rebuilds) --- the big differentiator is the sliding-scale of size, rigidity and performance vs. cost.
It's easy to build a small, flimsy, slow/weak machine at a low cost.
Conversely it's easy to build a large, sturdy, fast/power machine at a very high cost --- the ShapeOko succeeds at having found a reasonable level of size, rigidity and performance at a much lower cost than anything else.
As I noted before, I don't know that you'll get much interest from Inventables at this time --- they can't keep the machine in stock, but you really should contact Zach Kaplan directly --- maybe they could use this to leverage a volume purchase or something.
I did talk to Zach, and he told me that they didn't think it made sense for them to work with us. We can keep trying, but I don't have high hopes. I'll reach out to the OpenBuilds guys, and I'll add a few other options to the poll.
I previously owned a MyDIYCNC kit and I'd recommend against it. The "acme" rods are not that but instead just 1/4-20 threaded rod from a home improvement store. This makes it incredibly slow and because it runs cheap nema 17 motors, also fairly weak. The "anti backlash" is just a pair of plastic wing nuts with a spring that resembles what you'd find inside a click pen. I realize that the Shapeoko guys are being uncommunicative, but I'd hate to see anyone spend a healthy amount of money and be quite disappointed like I was myself.
One can add a laser to a ShapeOko as well --- there's even a page on the wiki about it, and some links to software support (ob. discl. I got a free machine to do the assembly instructions for the SO2).
Advantages for the SO2:
- Opensource
- much more active community forums
- all of the documentation is on-line and not hidden behind a paywall
I'm kind of mystified by your saying that the MyDIYCNC is more versatile.
The core factors that I weighed when making that claim were the larger build height, and that they offered modifications to their kit as options, such as the laser and the increased torque rotary tool.
Andrew,
Try contacting the guys at OpenBuilds about doing a drop. I picked up their Ox kit. It's a little more DIY than some of the other options, but essentially it's just a more complicated ShapeOko. I know they're working on getting some of the harder to acquire pieces ready made in house, depending on the time frame for the drop they might have stuff ready.
Here's a link to my Ox running at 1000IPM, the thing is a tank for the money:
You'll probably have better luck contacting Zach Kaplan at Inventables.com re: pricing --- dunno if they'd have much inclination to move on the pricing much, given that they can't keep the machines in stock.
That's my thought exactly. The guys over at MyDIYCNC make what appears to be more versatile kit, and they actually are interested in doing business with us. More importantly, all the kits from MyDIYCNC can have a laser add on for laser etching and cutting.
Lasers are pretty cool.
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