Thinking of buying/building machine for PCB milling

[HankMcSpank]

My first machine was self built from scrap printer parts (& thin scaffolding type piping would you believe!) - unsurprisingly, it sucked, but it could at least do simple through hole pcbs.

my next machine was imported from Taiwan....surprisingly solidly built but didn't have ballscrews (just simple M10 rod)....a lot better, but nesting (many copies of the same pcb) was not possible ....backlash issues meant that if you cut all the tracks for say 3 pcbs first, when you came to drilling run, the holes wouldn't align with the tracks!)

If you're serious about accuracy & want to be able to do many copies of the same PCB in one session, then I'd strongly suggest that you buy a machine with ballscrews .....the Z suffix on the chinese cnc machines are normally the ones that have ballscrews (therefore 3040Z etc, for example - 2013 Updated CNC 3040Z-DQ 3-Axis Engraving Machine Router Set Mill Device cmh | eBay ...though be aware that the stepper driver boards on these chinese machines are awful & prone to very early problems/failure). I'd be inclined to instantly sell the control box (to someone who no doubt has one that blew up) & put the money towards some m542 drivers...http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CNC-Micro-...item27c7454753

For milling PCBs (& all the other materials you mention) I personally have a strong preference for fixed gantry CNC machine (of which there are zilch in the 3040 sizes available on Ebay) & would look at importing one.... http://cnredsail.en.alibaba.com/prod..._aluminum.html - that one is about $1200 delivered + taxes (which would probably result in a final 'to your door price' of £1100)