Info on Shark Extended

I own an early Shark Pro, and have a Shark HD2.0 where I work. All CNCs made by Nextwave Automation have a plastic Z axis router mount. It is the achilles heel of the design. Both Sharks I have needed a fix for the router clamps which eventually cracked. The play in the Z assembly that grows over time (a plastic property) has made our Shark HD2.0 pretty useless for anything but light cuts such as 3D carving where the ball end bit is only taking off a small amount with each pass.

The Axioms 8 Pro that Rockler sells, or the Meteor CNC that Probotix.com sells would be better 24 x 48 CNCs. The Sharks come with VCarve Pro which you'll need to draw up designs and make toolpaths for. That software can be bought as an add-on from Probotix, or you can use any of a 1/2 dozen other CAD/CAM programs, some of which are free.

The Meteor comes with a PC already configured running Linux and LinuxCNC to control their CNCs. To me this is a much better interface for control compared to the proprietary controller that you can download once you own a Shark.

4D

SteveMI said:

Good info, if you replaced the router mount with an aluminum one, would you recommend it then?
Steve.

Click to expand...

I'm sure you could swap out all the HDPE parts for aluminum and end up with a much more accurate and useful CNC, but I'm not going to recommend a CNC where you have to rebuild it once you get it to make it worth its price. I still get occasional use out of my old Shark Pro. It only carries a lightweight trim router though. I've already replaced the router clamp with a much more effective version. The bed design is a solid t-track plane over a feed rod that pulls a bottom gantry beam back and forth. No real option there for opening up the bed to clamp parts vertically beneath it. For roughly the same money I bought my Meteor from Probotix and have twice the cutting area along with an all aluminum and steel bed frame. Two Y axis steppers pull the gantry back and forth, leaving all the area inside the perimeter frame available for jigs and brackets and fixtures and magic. By mounting my Meteor on essentially just four 4x4 posts I've been able to cut a menagerie of different parts and joints that you won't be able to cut on any more conventional solid bed CNC.

4D