Newbie, build or buy

[handles]

So what electronics do you have? Maybe other forum members can help you.
You might want to start a thread of your own rather than end up hijacking this one.

Kit

What are you smoking, brah? The man asked for an opinion on whether to build or buy, which I duly gave. How is that hijacking a thread?

A custom machine by someone who does it for a living, or a good commercial is optimized. The problems that you haven't even thought of as a newbie are all ironed out.
A homebuild contains all the errors and mistakes from someone doing it for the first time. Therefore that will require tinkering at best, or rebuilding from scratch at worst.

As DG said, if you want to tinker because it is fun, build it yourself. If you want to run it as part of your commercial operation buy a custom made or a commercially built one.

[Kitwn]

What are you smoking, brah? The man asked for an opinion on whether to build or buy, which I duly gave. How is that hijacking a thread?

A custom machine by someone who does it for a living, or a good commercial is optimized. The problems that you haven't even thought of as a newbie are all ironed out.
A homebuild contains all the errors and mistakes from someone doing it for the first time. Therefore that will require tinkering at best, or rebuilding from scratch at worst.

As DG said, if you want to tinker because it is fun, build it yourself. If you want to run it as part of your commercial operation buy a custom made or a commercially built one.

You mentioned that you still have your spindle tripping your limit switches randomly, I was referring to that. Apologies for not being clear.

Kit

[handles]

You mentioned that you still have your spindle tripping your limit switches randomly, I was referring to that. Apologies for not being clear.

Kit

No worries, Kit, I was just giving the OP an example that you can do the research and all the "right things", and still hit problems if your electronics are too cheap. They are the only cheap electronics on my machine and I will be upgrading them soon, so all good.

The reason I asked was I've been thinking of building one for a while but fear it could be one of those projects that never get finished! Plus I've been offered a Chinese made 8x4, almost new, for less than the cost of building.
I do general joinery, doors/windows etc but I'm looking to focus more on cabinets and thought a cnc might be beneficial.
Anyone got any experience with chinese machines? I don't need a workhorse as there'll be days/weeks where its not used but at the same time will want it to run properly when needed.

Sorry, cant help you with experience on Chinese machines. If you do decide to build your own, however, I built an Avid replica and can give you a lot of useful info on this to fast-track you.

[Kitwn]

No worries, Kit, I was just giving the OP an example that you can do the research and all the "right things", and still hit problems if your electronics are too cheap. They are the only cheap electronics on my machine and I will be upgrading them soon, so all good.

Been there, done that, got tears all over the T-shirt. There's quite a saga in the archive here of problems I've had with the spindle causing spurious tripping of limit switches when using a cheap Chinese BoB and LinuxCNC via a parallel port. I'm still not entirely sure where in the chain from BoB input to PC motherboard the problem really was. The shiny new AXBB-E controller and UCCNC software installation running via Ethernet have been faultless so far.

Kit

[Russjp]

Sorry, cant help you with experience on Chinese machines. If you do decide to build your own, however, I built an Avid replica and can give you a lot of useful info on this to fast-track you.

Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on that depending on what I decide