Thinking of buying one of these little things

[JAZZCNC]

You're right, instead I should have spent 3 years of evenings spec'ing sourcing & building. Some of the self build threads on here extend back to when Elvis could still visit the toilet without issue. Show me anywhere on the planet (webpage) you can buy a new machine with a similar spec.

Rubbish it's down to the individual how long it takes. Some have built perfectly good machines in less than a month.

I think you are still missing the point...ok, so you eat sleep breathe CNC machines, some folks just want to mill a pcb or a bit of acylic (it's akin to someone going into a car showroom asking about a ford fiesta for the school run & the salesman saying "pah, that thing won't carry girders, what you need is this Hummer")..& some folks don't want to spend yonks stroking their chin with a furrowed brow....I still reckon buying secondhand is viable - i.e. buy a modest secondhand cnc machine for £500...use it, sell it for £500....cost of ownership = £0 (re the machine I bought ...it's the most cost effective £500 I'll ever spend & for it's purpose - and as it whirrs its merry little way milling a pcb out, not once have I thought "Damn, if only I'd listened to those on mycncuk")

Yes your correct I do breath and live CNC but your wrong that I miss the point. I fully get the point of what your saying and it's with much experience thru helping many 100's of dissapointed people who have taken your penny pinching route that I speak.
These machines are great learning machines.! . . They learn you that operating a small CNC doesn't take long to learn. They also learn that you just wasted £500 + on a tool that is limited to scratching tin foil or icing cakes.!! . . . . There's a big difference between scratching and cutting correctly.

Cost of owner ship is more than the machine it's self, wasted time, wasted tools, wasted material, wasted hair all come into the equation. These machines by there very design (ie Weak and slow) can not avoid wasting time and tools.
They are so poorly built using cheap components that they are limited in the feeds they can achieve. This means at best they may just meet the requirements for correct feed rates so that tools don't wear prematurely. But In majority of cases they can't reach any where near whats required so tools wear out very quickly shortening tool life.
Tool wear leads to tool breakage so wasted time, material and tool are the outcome. Often it's blamed on being new and put down to learning.
Fact is It's not all down to this and mostly down to the fact the machine can't reach the correct feed rates where tool isn't stressed.!

Those that can are constantly operating at there maximum capabiltys which wears the cheap nasty bearings etc. So machine quickly becomes sloppy and baggy. This causes lock ups etc in short order with resulting hair pulling sessions.
And I won't even go into the Junk electronics.!!

(perhaps the CNC genre around these parts is a bit like a career in deep sea diving ...you start at the top & work your way down?)

No your start at the top and never look back thinking WTF did I buy that pile shite.!!!