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Advice on Multi Cam Designer CNC 1200mm x 1200mm deck
Hello All.
Hope all is well.
I am interested in purchasing a Small Australian Made CNC, called the Multi Cam Designer ,its around 10 yrs old and has not been used for production but was used for a small workshop enviroment.
The machines comes with factory installed "Toolpath",included also Vcarve Pro, Cut 3d, Photocarve, Signlab ES, and Micrographix Designer. The machine runs a PC with windows 98.
I need your opinion and experience to advise if this machine being 10 yrs old is capable of doing most simply every day routing jobs Eg. letters, 3d work and engraving efficiently.
I dont need a large machine and this size is perfect for floor space and these particular size are hard to come by second hand.
Running a very old operating systems worries me but according to the owner its only to supply the file to cnc machine.If any one can advise me of issues i need to be aware of before i consider investing in this machine this would be great.I am very green CNC but i am a sign writer and have a wide format printer & cutter so i an stranger to cutting & printing.
Any help would be appreciated,
Cheers,
Pj -
3 Replies
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Praveen
One of the most overlooked things about under-sized cnc machines is that most materials that you are going to use come in 2440 by 1220 sheets.
This means that before you even start, you need to cut down the sheets, which I found a pain.
Some suppliers will cut sheets in half for you, but you will forget to ask sometimes when ordering, and some suppliers will not offer that option.It didnt take me long to trade up from a benchtop shopbot to a full sized one for mainly that reason. I guess I was fortunate to have the space for it.
Simon.
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Hi
I have a Mulitcam M1? which is the same size but about 1995 vintage. it is a great machine. My machine was factory refurbished so it is practically brand new.
The toolpath software is ok. In the version I have you can only do 2.5d work as there is no ability to do 3d. However there is some Psuedo 3d work you can do with text that I have not tried. There is a way to do more complicated work. Check out this post http://www.cnczone.com/forums/commercia … _code.html
1200×1200 work area is not bad, I have a table next to the machine so I can use 1200×2400 sheets without cutting them. There is a function where you can send a 1200×2400 file to the machine, and it will stop half way, so you can move the sheet along. The previous owners of my machine did not have much success which this. I have not tried
The build quality is great. The electronics are made by AXYZ, the rest made in Australia. I enquired about a year ago about upgrading the electronics to their lastest system (allows any input software, not just their own toolpath) Multicam advised me it was going to be $15000 AUS. Dont have that money so just using as is.
I would have no doubts in buying another Muliticam. Message me if you want any more information
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I don’t have the machine in question but I do have a small router I built myself.
smaller sizes do waste material as you need to cut the sheets to fit the router, but as Peter said you should be able to have a table beside it to support the rest of an 8X4 sheet.The old computer will only be a problem if it starts to fail but you could look at getting another computer with XP on and install the Mach3 CNC controller. You will have to do a bit of research but it should work and it means you have a current controller with full 3D capability AND you’ll also be familiar with how to fix it if something goes wrong.
If you do this before the original computer fails then you can just switch over.Steve
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