I was about to say pretty much the same thing. It's a pretty standard cnc engraving machine, it isn't worth anywhere near 4000 USD. It seams sturdy, but you can get the same thing for about a tenth of that. Some people watch their videos and just want whatever they're using to achieve the same results out of the box.

Totally with you. I think its way to expensive too but the way how they make uv solder masks with it is pretty cool

Hi Andris, I use the same CNC machine (CNC 3018) and I can get 0.1mm precision as I use a flex shaft motor , so all the vibrations are gone. My only problem is the noise from this 200W, 20,000 rpm flex shaft motor.

Should the call them, MCBs?

Good call haha. Guys I ordered a cheap mill. What's the best kind of spindle to get. I plan on replacing all the electronics and such and making a custom controller with the tmc5160 Bob boards and a teensy 4.1

funny ,but 3018 CNC from ebay with ER11 collet and bigger spindle for 300$ can do even more than that :)

@@goodwill7643 tell me about it! I started with a 3018. You need to upgrade kind of a lot to get it to compete against this, but that is primarily due to the linear rails as opposed to linear rods. The 3018 has a lot of play in the z axis. However, for this price, you could buy the best 3d printer on the market, a cheap aluminum extrusion cnc, upgrade it with linear rails, use ball screws if you want, and limit switches, and you'd still have $2800

@@goodwill7643 I mean by comparison, for this price, you could get a servo controlled grizzly which can cut pcbs all the way up to steel. For this price you could buy a tormach. Its crazy what they are charging for this.

@@honkhonk165 I have 3018 and I do PCB milling and front panel cutouts without any upgrades. About price I completely agree, for that it is pure marketing.

Some good questions there! I think! Since it probes the surface, a regular threaded screw is probably ok, it only cuts a fraction of a mm when making a pcb and for cutting the pcb out of the panel the leadscrew is probably nor necessary, a nicely cut threaded rod is probably ok. Would struggle to get a fine pitch trapezoidal thread anyway.

1 thou runout on a pcb milling machine is bad, on a $4k machine it’s terrible. Just checked my box store Dremel, less than 0.5 thou. Add a cheap collet and it’s up to about 1 thou on the bit shank. I totally agree that a grub screw is a shame. As a package, software, integrated touch probe, overall presentation seems quite a nice pcb making tool. For it’s intended purpose I suppose the grub screw is good enough, just don’t buy 3mm bits by mistake.

@@klave8511 0.5 thou on a dremel ? Ok then ... you should have bought a lottery ticket in the same store. At any rate, there is a good reason for the grub screw. Mounting a spring tensioned bit in the holder for Soldermask milling. You can view the method on their channel. Why use a collet anyway when you have a machine that is only supposed to use 3.175 mm shank bits? As for the price, yes, a big shame I agree.

Actually the collet makes sense. You don't see it in this video but one thing you can do with this collet mechanism is is spring load the tool. What this means is that the tool is able to move up and down in the collet (which you cannot do with ER collets). Why would you want this, well best go look at their youtube channel for an example but with the engraver spring loaded in the collet you can 'scrape' off UV photo resist solder mask from the pads. Essentially you put some UV hardening solder mask over the entire board (with a silk screen or such to get it nice and even), harden it out, then remove the mask from the pads where you need solder to go. Thanks to the spring loaded tool you can do that without scraping of the copper underneath. But you are right about the price. It is alas a bit on the high side. And for that cost you can indeed get better bang for your buck. Personally I would go with one of those blue anodized 1310 CNC's (as they have real linear rails) and an S4225 24k or higher BLDC spindle (ER8 collet with low runout). Would have smaller work area but in my case that would be enough for PCB prototypes. For solder mask you can always use dry film solder mask and a mask for the solder pads while UV curing that (pretty tricky to do right with solder mask from a tube).

absolutely.

my diy 200 dollar cnc almost out class this

@@TnInventor I would say a video is in order then.

@@xConundrumx i am already on it

There is actually a good reason for that ... Milling soldermask (after it is applied to the whole board) is done by mounting the engraving bit loose in the tool mount (with a spring at the top pushing the engraving bit down). The grub screw serves as a stop then to prevent the tool from falling out (not to actually fix the tool in place). This way the engraving tool can mill the soldermask off the copper without milling away the copper using the spring to put just the right amount of down force on the bit. Doing this with any other tool mount option would be hard. In reality given that all tools used by this machine will have 1/8th (or 3.175mm) shanks the grub screw is quite ok.

@@xConundrumx he is mounting the MILLING TOOL with the grub screw. I don't care that it supports a spring loaded tool. It needs to be able to grab the tools properly, and a grub screw is absolutely terrible.

@@zaprodk Alright, no need to yell.

I use a Genmitsu PROVer v2 for this purpose. Quality is a function of the feed rate mostly. The auto-levelling can be done with Candle Grbl sender.

Looks like threaded rod, aluminum, and nylon or teflon. Nothing fancy. Maybe a preloaded nut for eliminating backlash.

Thanks. Given the looks and checking this CNC price I was wondering if it was something super fancy.

@@RobertBaruch Dear Mr. Baruch - I'm quite impressed with what you do - I'm a tech enthusiast and I want to learn certain things from you - of course I'm ready to pay remuneration if it is within my budget. Please share your email id. Alternatively, I can share mine. Please let me know ...

@@RobertBaruch Is there anything holding the bed down to the extrusions other than just the lead screw/nut? Maybe the upward forces are not strong?

@@RobertBaruch Is there anything holding the bed down to the extrusions other than just the lead screw/nut?

Pcb engineers Saves them a ton of not only money but time waiting on a prototype pcb to be manufactured and shipped only to realize there was an error, which means another round of payments and waiting on shipping. This allows a pcb designer to get all the bugs and issues out of the way so there is less chance you will have problems with your first run prototypes from a pro manufacturer. Look at the cost of pro grade 3D printers, same idea

Universities perhaps also. Or startups with fast turnaround time...

@@estoniaman you could do the exact same job with a 200$ machine. 500 max (to not be rough around the edges). The price is plain CRAZY

Yes exactly! The audience who could use this is hobbyists, who can't justify the price, with the professionals not even giving it a second look, so who is buying it? Schools? Can this thing even do qfn or bga, which seems to be becoming the new standard? Good luck doing a 6mill trace with this lol. Amazing but worthless machine.

I'm looking for a similar result with a price under 3k$ USD... Do you have any clue or example? I just want to be able to do 8-10mil, QFP and 0603 SMD.

@@GhostRaider38 Well, I just have a cheap Chinese CNC mill I bought a couple of years ago. I've changed a good bit of the electronics parts and added some limit switches but the frame is pretty much stock. I think I paid ~$900 US for it, but I'm sure they're cheaper now. It doesn't have perfect runout but I was able to get it pretty accurate. Really the biggest thing I've noticed that helped was getting higher quality bits. I was originally using some cheap 30 degree v-bit engraving bits, which are incredibly fragile, dull easily, and seem to tear through the copper foil more than cut it. Using a fluted v-bit has helped a lot.

Many people have a cnc router like this.... a 3D printer. Attach a low grade motor with drill holder and you're there.

Yes, there is a sacrificial layer underneath.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

စိတ်ဝင်စားဖိုကောင်ပါတယ်

@@weiaungweiaung there are some advantages of supporting the PCB at its edges, thus doing away for the need to have a sacrifice board underneath. The disadvantage is the risk that the PCB will flex, degrading the accuracy of the drilling and cutting. With thick PCBs it is possible to use an unsupported board, particularly if the edges are well clamped. Ideally we either need a self healing sacrifice board, or low cost sacrifice boards that are already flat. The material for such boards, should minimise the damage to drill bits.

​@@RobertBaruchprice

I'm building one this week and putting all custom electronics and controller on it. What do you use. I'd rather a simple option than build a custom controller. Any help is appreciated

@Sang Kang cool thank you. I was thinking long term that I might make one out of a teensy 4.1 and 5160 Bob boards. I have a bunch just sitting on my hoarde of components we all have hahaha

It will not lower more than 10mm. But also, it detects the increased current in the motor and stops. But at that point, you've ruined your bit and your material.

@@RobertBaruch Great thanks! Looking forward to see more vids on how this fits into your workflow. ;)

@@marios2liquid it should be absolutely possible to combine the autolevelling principle in the new Creality Ender 3D printer with this machine. Putting the complete spindle motor onto a strain gauge and measuring the impact force should allow for an immediate feedback on the fly...

Sure... if it was actually in any way usefull to anyone but a hobyist who isnt doing high density designs lol

I am more curious about the the stepper how it moving thins because no threaded rod or timing belt is shown can anybody tell me about this confusion ?

you can buy similar machines on aliexpress for a couple hundred. search 3018 engraver. make sure to get spiral engraving bits, the regular ones constantly break. for bits search "spiral engraving bit 0.1mm"

@@LittleRainGamesAliexpress machines are not suitable tp make sad pcbs like this machine

@@LittleRainGames As someone with a stupid amount of experience in making PCBs using various techniques AND has perfected their own PCB fabrication line at home (from photoresist lamination to through-hole plated), I can tell you that the ONLY thing that makes this machine special is the bit. You are right that a cheap Chinese CNC is able to do work to this quality, BUT if your engraving bit is cheap, the resultant work is rough and completely unusable. If you want these results, its worth buying the Wegstr engraving bit....

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b6qPZNygup_Sk6s.html

It's an unfortunate US term, for a milli-inch (0.001 inches)

@@RobertBaruch Thank you for clearing that up for me.

The smallest trace ended up at around 4 mil. The key limiting factor is the space, which came out at 10 mil or so. I'm not making RF boards here, so the actual sizes don't matter, as long as I can get the paths accurate enough, there should be no broken traces. And yeah, 1 mil runout. Of course, I have no idea how inaccurate it is when you add the vibration of the machine, but it seems to have worked out okay.

It must have some run-out because normally those square pinheaders fit snugly in 0,9mm holes.

@@zaprodk I measured the holes at around 0.94mm. The pins are 0.64mm on a side, so 0.90mm diagonal. That isn't a snug fit for sure, but I'll take it.

@@RobertBaruch what I meant is that when I drill a 0.8 hole it's too small and when I drill a 0.9mm hole it's a nice snug fit.

@@zaprodk Oh, I see. I didn't mention it in the video, but I later changed the 0.8mm holes to 0.9mm holes. Yes, the pins didn't fit in the 0.8mm holes, which is why I had to change it!

Those Chinese machines on eBay and Amazon don’t work at all unless you have a degree in electrical engineering. They also have absolutely no support at all. Not worth all the stress and aggravation. It’s worth spending another $4k.

The answer is accuracy