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anyone seen any CNC Routers that have caught their eye?
We are considering a new purchase, we currently have an old Dimension 200 Gerber and the table is just too small now, we had quite a lot of work to do and we try and cut long materials on it and it just a slow painful process.
Has anyone seen any CNC Routers recently that has caught their eye?
We mainly cut dibond/foamex type surfaces for general signage. -
26 Replies
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I have had AXYZ routers for 6 years.
Started with the 1m Millenium paid £12k traded for £9.5 5 years later against a new 4008.
Great machines great service we have no maintenance call outs in this time except for the annual service under their extended warranty agreements.
We dont particularly have to maintain them wee bit of grease 1 a year to be exact.
Mark Sweeney is the contact.
Tell him i say hi.
Cheers
John
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I agree wholeheartedly. Have a Milenium 2 years now. Use for nearly all prismatic lettering. Totally hassle free. AXYZ are an excellent company to deal with. Cannot recommend them highly enough.
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HI, my collegue has made some initial enquiries with them, I shall have to check over the competion and get a market feel for them all.
We are looking for 2mtr x 3mtr to take a full sheet of perspex etc.
Your comments are welcome… how is the software side of things with these, we are Corel based and our poor old P3 running Advantage struggles with some of Corel’s ‘thousands’ of points. Is it pretty straight forward?
The 3D (Z axis), is it fairly easy for a Corel designer to take advantage with Z (like in 3D lettering) -
We never went 3d with ours. I beleive the 3D driver program is into the £1500 plus price bracket. We use their standard toolpath software which does cut in 3D ie it will run different paths at different heights but it will not cut truly 3D shapes. We dont have a need and no need for the software.
We use corel for most things and occasionally we use turbocad.
I would be interested in finding out if you find software for a lot less for true 3D routing.
Cheers
John
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As mentioned, nearly all my work is 3d. Use Flexi for design. Toolpath studio is 3d software supplied with machine. It imports files saved in illustrator format with no probs. However the package is a almost identical to Signlab, with all the design features. Someone using Corel would easily adapt to designing in Studio if you had any probs importing files. Also AXYZ maintenance agreement is excellent and includes a free service each year for five years. They spend about four hours stripping down and cleaning all parts.
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We have a 3x2M Pacer, recently installed K series cost about 25k. Quite happy with it so far, has it’s own software and has worked reasonably well for us cutting di-bond, foamex and ally without problem. We looked at the AXYZ range too but as I recall it needed a compressor to run (might be wrong it was a few months ago now) so we opted for the Pacer. Only operational issue we have had is cutting smaller sections on some materials due to vacuum pressure not being sufficient to hold substrate but suppose that could be a problem on other machines too.. We also had problems getting it in the premises because it did not come in modular form so whatever machine you choose make sure to check on access requirements
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Thank you gentlemen for your comments, a lot there that is useful. We have contact AXYZ and have had our prices through, we are “looking” at Pacer products, my collegue has taken holiday at the moment and we will be contacting them.
Nice to hear that AXYZ do a part strip down each year, that may add some heavyweight behind their price. Can anyone else say the same about their AXYZ?
I haven’t contacted anyone else about their routers, I always look at the competetion in detail before we make the decisions. I have acutally used a 4x2mtr gas/plasma router gantry made by Messer Gresham about 5-7 years ago, it was an old machine modified to plasma, however the plasma kept melting the drive IC chips… hmmm. We had quite a battle with them over this.
The software notes is helpful, we are Corel and want this to fit in easily.
Thanks
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thanks, we just got our quote from pacer, it was £10K more then the AXYZ and quite suprised by that.
any other makes we should consider, we are leaning towards AXYZ at the moment, we will have to keep the machine working to pay it back though 😕
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Hi Dave,
don’t know much about CNC router’s, but I think Graphtec are doing great deals.
Russ
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the AXYZ looks a good deal, but I want to ask this…
has anyone had a go with the Vinyl Cutter addon
http://www.axyz.co.uk/productdetailinfo.php?prodID=63Is this actually going to work? I hoping the bed will be 100% true flat to use something like that…
At the moment we cannot contour cut and this maybe our way into that market… anyone got any experience with flat bed contour / vinyl cutting or is a gimmik?
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I have had all Gerber software and equipment for years…but changed routes abit a few years ago by buying a T series Summa Sign Pro for sandblast resist.
Then from sandblasting signs I wanted to get into routing, found myself looking at Gerber Dimension and Sabre’s but thought it was overrated and overpriced.
I looked mainly at Multicam, and AXYZ after a tip from Rob here who has or had a Millenium.
The quote I got from Multicam was for an A series machine 8ft x 4ft, with a 3hp spindle and vacuum table, the machine I put that up against was an AXYZ 4008 which came in better specified, and cheaper.
I ordered that, it came from the UK “directtransport” but they changed trucks in Gothenburg on the other side of Sweden, and it literally fell out the back.
So I got sent a new machine and that was a 4010 which is 1500x 3000m routing area.
I have a good friend, (just happens to be an AXYS tech) in Gothenburg who has a 2mx 3m table with ATC.
Nice set up just abit big to load on your own at times 🙂
I have an Elte 10hp spindle, misting set up for cutting aluminium, I use some Belin bits but buy most from Sally at ITC.
I built the stagefloor for Mamma Mia last winter, its paid over half it value in just over a year, and its not run everyday.
I run Signlab Engravelab with it and then to Toolpath. Toolpath studio is Signlab 5 which has been remodelled for output to AXYS machines, you do everything in the same programme rather than importing files into Toolpath, but thats OK too.
I still like my Gerber Omega software so work in that then to Signlab.
I don’t think you would regret buying an AXYZ for the signbusiness
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The compressor is probably used for tensioning the drive belts on the X & Y & Z axis- you don’t need to use this feature if you don’t want
Our machine has feed lines to all 3 axis and there are air driven pistons which keep the belts tight- this is only an issue if you are running at really high positioning speeds when the thing is flying round the bed- the belts cant keep up with the drive cog revolutions and start slipping. I run a 6m P/M positioning which is half speed.
The extra time is pretty minimal and I don’t think positioning flat out is really worth the din of a compressor- you can’t cut any material at 12m p/m feedrate anyway.
I looked at Pacers and liked the remote diagnostic facilty but like others have said the price was a bit on the hefty side. AXYZ also looked pretty good but were a bit too pricey for my liking.
The most important thing I’d want to be seeing is how stable the driver software is- any old design package that can chuck out a DXF that will be fine to cut but a rock solid driver is vital.
3D work is gonna cost a hefty chunk of cash- we had a demo of Solidworks last week- £12K plus £2K a year maintenance/ upgrade. Mind blowing software but that’s a lot of money. Again the driver software you get with the machine is important especially if you want to do complicated 3D stuff with miles and miles of G code.
Have you looked at the TEKCEL range? These are supposed to be the mutts- not sure on the price. From what I hear Tekcel machines are what Spandex were selling for years but the parent company have decided to go direct- the guy running the UK part used to be at Spandex on the router side- I might be wrong- just what I heard. For the size you are looking at they do an automated sheet handling system for loading and unloading which should stop the odd hernia 🙂 I think all the machines are servo driven instead of stepper.
Haven’t got any contact info but a google should do the trick.
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We run a Tekcel and it is an excellent machine , built like tanks and the motors and drive system are seriously heavy duty. Lead screws , recirc bearings and massive servo motors , the Y axis actually has dual lead screws and motors. Very versatile controller as well , lets you do lots of nice things. I have a 3 hp perske High speed spindle and inverter and use Corel , signlab , profilelab , artcam and mastercam to drive it. Do very little true 3d work as its a total waste of time as to get smooth output even on small stuff , can take hours if not days. I can cut thru 5mm thick brass in a single pass with it and can do anything from woodwork to very fine mould engraving.
I would like to have got the tool change model and a better vacuum table , stuff I will get soon. We have had ours, bought second hand , for well in excess of 3 years and have never had to call the agents in for anything , it just goes on day after day , doing its job. The only problem we had was getting it into our old workshop , we had to remove a window to do so as the doors werent big enough!! -
Another thing to think about is the gantry height, I do make dimensional signs and work quite alot with styrofoam, and as it said the height above the table was 160mm I thought thats what I had, but with the vacumm table and then a thick sheet on the table I was limited in the length of tool I could use.
I modified a second backplate for mounting the spindle, so it comes up alot higher, I have necked 150mm bits that I can go down into 100mm thick styrofoam and come up again for travel.
You can order the machine with a modified gantry from the start too, its easy to overlook some of these things, when there is so much else to take in.
I guess it depends on the type of work you want to do.
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Blimey 5mm Brass in one whack- Rodney what sort of bits are you using mate? I’ve got a 5.6KW spindle so driving power ain’t a problem. I’ve had issues with the tooling- getting the right balance between quality and price has been tricky.
As Henry says the Z height is an issue for the dimensional work- we’ve got 160mm too but with the sacrificial bed this is down to around 130 or so. The biggest issue I’ve found with the dimensional stuff is finding material thick enough to make it viable- in the states dimensional foam is the favoured option and there are all kinds of primers and things which speed the process.
I’ve not had much joy on this side of things- the only foam place I could find wanted a lot of dosh for really weird, scrappy little sheet sizes 🙁
If you are looking at spindles the Perske range seems the most widely used. However I rate Elte. This is what we have and the guys in Italy are really, really helpful- being able to deal direct with the factory makes a big difference to me as I don’t have to wade through the waffle from the middle men.
Toolchange is the ideal option for the spindle but the cost is pretty hefty 🙁 Also, if I was specing up our system again I’d go for a water cooled Elte system to keep the heat to a minimum.
When you’re buying your CNC the most expensive parts are the AC power supply and the spindle- so it pays to get good un’s as the replacement costs are hefty. I went 3 phase as this is more stable and places less strain on the invertor than single phase- also, with 3 phase there are more options in terms of spindles etc.
3D work is more viable if you get the right software- smart toolpathing really cuts down on machine time as does stepping down tool sizes as you go.
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Southern Andy,
I couldn’t PM you, so as regards board sources, Hartbrights in Manchester normally have a container of Precision Board, they run 2 Gerber 408’s, The main Corian Distributor in the UK can’t find tel no just now sells SignFoam. Vink sell OBO board from germany and then you have a nice board from Cibatool which I’ve sandblasted quite alot, then you have Ebalta in Germany http://www.ebalta.de who will make boards to suit pretty much.
A company over here called Inotan, so there are quite a few around, compare quality densities and price,
All the best,
Henry
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I am happy to see all the help you guys give, we are just about to place our order for a 3 x 2M router, AXYZ are offering a good deal, the only thing that I am not sure is, should I choose a Tekcel due to them having Dual Lead Screws ? we will be working with aluminium and s/steel all the time, will the AXYZ be as rigid during the vibration as the Tekcel ?
I have two Gerber 48 Sprints for sale with upgrade software (Omega & Art path) I have to sell them first 👿 -
I use the tekcel and its EXTREMELY rigid and robust , however stainless is not nice at all to machine unless you actually have a high speed spindle (not the same as a high freq spindle) – 40-60 000 rpm is good.
You need lots of power and very high rotational speed , the rotational speed is counterintuitive , but what it does is not allow any heat into the SS due to fast travel and extremely fast chip removal. The biggest problem with SS is that it work hardens with heat and if the cutter and engraving area get hot , the cutter struggles more and it gets hotter etc and eventually the cutter breaks. The big problem is the material is so hard at that point any fresh cutter does the same. We use HSS cutters on SS. the most important thing if you are using a normal spindle is your coolant system with SS. Ally is generally easy , but of course the soft grades clog cutter and thus the cutter needs a lot of back clearance.
We also treat our collets as consumables , often bad engraving or cutting is due to a bad ccollet.
In terms of machines , I would buy whatever has the best and nearest support. -
well Spandex used to make the Tornado but no longer want that hassle, however someone from Spandex told us to look more into the Pacer models as there is reports of vibration on the AXYZ’s so I am just as confused now. Not sure who to trust
Will dig up the paper work on the routers soon but sounds like LedZep is wanting to do the same thing as us.
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I still can not make my mind up, AXYZ have been very helpful and I would like to deal with them, it is all down to the fact that I am buying in a lot of S/Steel letters from Cameron Signs in Glasgow who are producing the best quality I have seen from a router, They have Two Gerber’s the main one being a Gerber Profile.
I understand it is all controlled via Lead Screws where as the AZYX only the Z Axis is controlled be lead screws, the rest is rack & Pinion which I am told can be less rigid and quicker to wear.
I used to be adventurous, I purchased the first Spandex System 48 from the exhibition stand at its Launch, it was rubbish, I could cut letters quicker and better on a pantograph, if I had the masters. and now I am taking so long to make this choice 👿 -
Even tho I have the capability to cut SS letters , it is actually far cheaper for us to have them laser cut or waterjet cut , possibly a proposition for you too?
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i am positive AXYZ have laser machines too. i think i read benson signs just had their “second” 3m x 2m AXYZ laser installed recently.
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hi david.
a bit late. we are looking at maybe purchasing a router. whats the 200 like that you have. and did you upgrade.
look forward to hear from you
Neill Mennell
thanks for your time. 😀(mod-edit) admin@uksignboards.com
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We sent some samples to both Zund and AXYZ to see what kind of edge finish I would get on perspex. The Zund ones came back and I wasn’t impressed. Now waiting for the AXYZ.
The only thing that’s between us and a purchase is that we need excellent stability to get a good edge finish. I heard that ballscrews give better positioning and AXYZ uses rack & pinion. An AXYZ operator told me that it wasn’t an issue because his R & P was stable.
The Zund does have all kinds of bells and whistles for the sign industry but they’re double the price! The other problem is that they used steel bands that can be suceptible to breakage if scrap gets in them. We have two Zund lasers, one rack & pinion and one steel belt and they’re both good.
When I get back the samples we’ll make a purchase.
🙂 http://www.zund.com -
this is another company that we are currently talking too
We also heard the storys on the vabrations etc and how well built it is.
We haven’t made a decision yet, but ours will be a spindle rather then a laser for generic signage and materials use.AXYZ have been very good with their sales, I just hope the product does work out well if we go for theirs.
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That Pacer ain’t bad looking.
Is it me or they all look alike? Makes it more difficult to evaluate and we’re still tending toward the AXYZ.
There are a bunch of Chinese machines on the market nowdays – I hear they’re junk but will not always be that way. I fear that there is a shakedown coming in that industry and a big part of our purchase decision is to bet on who will be still standing when the dust clears.
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