My brain is about to melt...do I build, buy or cry? Chinese or British, Kit or Parts?

[mekanik]

I seemed to get the impression from one of his posts a while back that he could have had a health issue, hope he is OK.

[Neale]

Couple of years back, I was discussing this issue with a friend. I'm very much a hobby user; he runs a small sign- and notice-board business. I built my machine from 3mm box section steel, all-welded including the gantry. Mix of 50x50 and 100x50. Cutting area about 1500x750. Components and material cost probably around £2-2.5K. Took around 6 months - but I'm not a fast worker. Now built, it works very nicely.

He wanted the machining capability as soon as possible, and bought from China (Acctek). He had done some research, spoke to them via Skype to sort out details, and very importantly found a UK shipping agent to handle all transport and customs issues, rather than pay China for carriage. That all worked out well, and he has been using the machine successfully. Their smallest machine, 900x600 (limited by available space), cost around £3K. It wasn't very well finished in terms of machining quality, paint finish, etc, but worked well after just a little bit of fettling. Little things like proximity switch target being out of adjustment - when we took the covers off to investigate, the "target" turned out to be a broken tap, screwed in the hole with a locknut. Worked fine after tweaking, but a bit rough! They do larger machines for, I believe, not that much more money.

I'm sure you could build better for less, but if you need the capacity now, what cost do you put on your own time? That's where home and business users differ. I'm sure this is exactly the kind of debate you are having with yourself anyway but if you have a sound business plan that needs this machine, you probably need to buy now rather than build. My friend has no regrets about going down that path - even if my machine is better than his!

[Clive S]

I seemed to get the impression from one of his posts a while back that he could have had a health issue, hope he is OK.

Dean is fine, I think he has done quite a lot or reorganisation within his main business and so not had much time to play.

[SweetAs]

That's good news Clive! Thanks for passing that on! Fingers crossed he will be around when he gets some time.

Neale, thanks for the reply. You're right, that is exactly where I am at at the moment. I think if I'm being honest, I probably have at least a few months before this is going to get dealt with (as much as I want it sorting soon lol).

Realistically, the turn around time from China is usually 2-3 months anyway so it shouldn't be an issue. Very good comment regarding the freight forwarder, if anyone is reading this and thinking the same thing, make sure you find yourself a good forwarding company. I think we used JS Forwarding, can't quite remember now, anyway, they helped to get our laser machine through customs and they were excellent. It was the first time of doing this so they pretty much spoon fed us through the process and we would have been lost without them!

I guess one of the issues with Chinese machines is the lack of support which you dont need if you build, I just need to figure out a few things before we decide on that for sure.

I guess if I was to build I could look at doing it during our Christmas shutdown, I only get bored when I'm not at work anyway.....hmmmm....choices choices choices!