Hi GEOFFREY. Oh I completely understand that you can get a used machine for under £6k but I'm a little concerned with some aspects of this such as JAZZCNC mentioned. I realise I'm going to get less for my money by buying a new machine but at least I should be able to get up and running fairly quickly with it and it will (hopefully) have some form of warranty/support. Once I have my own machine I should hopefully be able to get to grips and understand the hardware side of things more and a second larger used machine could well be an option in the future.

For now, I only have a garage to work from with a 230v supply. I'm hoping to move to a bigger place within the next three to five years and hopefully build a larger workshop but for now this is all I have. I really don't want to wait much longer though and I really would like to start developing some products this year. Just for reference, this is an (old) photo of my garage/work shop. It's not quite so tidy at the moment however



If anyone does have any suggestions for new machines then I would love to hear them. From what I've read Marchant Dices machines are not too good and neither are Stoney CNCs. The only other ones I've really seen are the [Heiz T-1400/105] and the [EXEL CNC SL1314 Pro] although I'm not sure what they are like and both are probably going to be over budget by the time everything is accounted for.