Any idea what you plan on making? I'm a fan of the CNCs made by Probotix.com. I bought one of their Meteor (2' x 4' cutting area) CNCs after owning a CNC Shark (24" x 24") for a few years and wanting more cutting area. For under 5k you get a system nearly ready to run less plugging in a few cables. I love their system design. With 2 Ya motors and nothing running under the bed it can be opened up to do vertical clamping for furniture joinery or complicated cuts most other CNCs can't do. Some examples: 4D Furniture Thoughts: Advanced Compound Angle CNC Clamping Fixture.
4D Furniture Thoughts: Supporting Assembled Projects Beneath the CNC.
Or you can leave the bed intact and cut or carve the same sort of things 99% of the rest of the CNC owners out there cut. Add your own router or a true spindle.
You'll only need some software to generate the g-code for the CNC. Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists (at least for now). I prefer VCarve Pro or the more expensive Aspire from vectric.com You might be able to get away with just Cut2D from them if all you want to do is cut out simple shapes.
4D
4D Furniture Thoughts: Supporting Assembled Projects Beneath the CNC.
Or you can leave the bed intact and cut or carve the same sort of things 99% of the rest of the CNC owners out there cut. Add your own router or a true spindle.
You'll only need some software to generate the g-code for the CNC. Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists (at least for now). I prefer VCarve Pro or the more expensive Aspire from vectric.com You might be able to get away with just Cut2D from them if all you want to do is cut out simple shapes.
4D
