I visited the Carvey site, and was struck by how the vast majority of their sample projects they show could be made with a laser cutter. I would have thought that they would play up the ones that couldn’t.
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Same here. I planned all along to be using both to compliment each other with product design and manufacture. I was bummed shortly after Carvey arrived to learn about the first delay with Glowforge and it killed my enthusiasm to keep playing on the Carvey in the meantime.
Carvey is not as quiet as you experience for me and I have fully working Dust hood etc, no obvious defect that could explain noise leaks.
Carvey is especially noisy on some plywood I experimented on and even hear it is the next room with door closed.
Saying that l do fully support your thoughts that the machines are a great compliment.
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I have a small desktop cnc @ about 11 by 17 inches. I really enjoy making relief carvings/engravings on it. Coincidently, I purchased the XCarve (1000mm size) about 2 weeks ago. It was only 3 weeks lead time then; sales must be up. I’m really looking forward to setting this up to pass the time until the Glowforge gets here.
I have machined aluminum with some success. I was making a challenge coin but just couldn’t get the both sides to line up properly however, the detail was quite good. I wouldn’t try steel but, I would like to run some brass through it.
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Well, my definition of quiet may be a little skewed. My first experience with CNC was a Carvewright. I live in a rural area and I was afraid neighbors would start calling about my new hobby of testing aircraft engines. Perhaps after that, I figure anything is “quiet”.
Speaking of Carvewright, as I recall, they had a similar pre-sell program. I did get one of these first production machines and I certainly hope the Glowforge provides a better experience than that Carvewright did. I went thru two machines before I gave up on that experiment. It’s been about 10 years since the Carvewright came out and I think they are better now, but that was an example of a complex product being released before it was ready.
It’s over your budget, but I absolutely love my Shopbot Desktop. It can do everything you list, although you’d have to purchase the rotary add-on to do the curved surface at an even depth. It would be an excellent machine to complement your Glowforge. I cut and engrave acrylic on mine all of the time, and it engraves metals with a diamond drag bit.
I don’t work for them…just a happy customer! 
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I remember Sears came out with the CompuCarve quite some time ago. In my opinion, the Carvewright and the Compucarve seem to be the same machine. Almost bought one on Ebay recently but remembered hearing all about the problems with the early versions. I was also considering a cnc machine from Gryphon CNC.
I know you can buy or build a tabletop CNC machine to do everything you were looking to do. Different sites on EBay have all the pieces. I have been looking into building one myself.
If your main use case is making the rings you describe, then you are dealing with a pretty small footprint, and the Pocket NC may be right for you. I know it looks like an amazing machine and I wish I had an excuse to own one for myself.
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Like others, I purchased a CNC router after the GF announcement (delay) at the beginning of the year. I figured it would give me experience with 3D modeling and let me create some fun projects in the meantime.
I purchased a Probotix (www.probotix.com) machine, and depending on the size of machine and options you want, it could be in (or at least near) your price range. I wish I had purchased the rotary attachment earlier, but I didn’t (though it is on my Christmas list!) All in all, I have been very pleased with it.
That being said, I’ve recently been looking into an ‘indoor’ (that is, enclosed) CNC router to compliment the much larger Probotix in the garage. In particular, I’ve done research into the Othermill Pro (https://othermachine.co), the Carvey (www.inventables.com), and the Pocket NC (www.pocketnc.com). If you have any desire to make custom printed circuit boards (a niche market to be sure), the Othermill looks fantastic (I’m thinking along the lines of custom LED boards for edge-lit acrylics carved on my GF ). The Carvey has a larger volume (and a nice automated z-axis touch off), but the software is a bit rudimentary (though, as noted earlier, it can import more complicated toolpaths from other software). And finally, the Pocket NC adds 4th and 5th axes capabilities (think of it as carving from any side – not just from the top down), which is, quite frankly, very impressive for a $4k machine. Note, as @jacobturner said, the workable volume of the Pocket NC is rather small (about 4.3" x 5" x 3.55").
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I’ve often dreamed of milling my own circuit boards. What aspects of the Othermill makes it better than the other two?
Edit: I just visited the various sites, and see that the Othermill is really designed mostly for PCB fab. Question answered.
The following is strictly from a PCB perspective!
Two things, really:
- The OM has placed itself firmly in the ‘instant PCB prototype’ niche. Yes, it can mill wood, acrylic, etc., but they really focus on PCBs. That is very apparent in their homebrew software, which can import Eagle files natively and gerber export files from any other PCB layout software (note that the OM software is not a PCB layout software, it just converts it into a millable form for copper-clas FR1 boards). There are a myriad of free layout packages out there, and OM had support pages for many of them.
- The OM has some precision fixturing options for supporting double-sided PCB milling. It also has less runout (i.e., capable of thinner traces) than the other machines.
The one thing you need to weigh the above against is the myriad of PCB fab houses that you can upload your design to and they will fab and send you a professionally made board (with through-hole vias, solder resist masking, screen printing, etc. as options) for a small cost (if you don’t mind waiting a week to receive it in the mail).
Edit: I see you answered your own question while I was responding
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How do you like the Probotix? I just looked at their site. Looks like it could be a good next step for me. I currently have a CNC Shark 24" x 24" machine and hope to eventually move up to 48" x 96" but I can’t justify the space or the price at this time. The largest Probotix may be a good intermediate step.
The best thing I can say about my Probotix is it just works and it is solid. No assembly is required (it comes completely assembled and they build a crate around the assembly) – but you will need to be available to accept a freight delivery. I purchased the Asteroid model, which is the same width but half the depth of the largest Nebula model. I quickly figured out an indexing scheme to cut larger boards in multiple passes and have them line up (which you’ve probably figured out on the CNC Shark as well).
Probotix ships with a basic Linux PC and runs LinuxCNC for the interface. I splurged and bought most of the options:
- Z touch-off puck (for measuring the thickness of your wood)
- ATLaS automatic tool length sensor (a must-have for multi-bit engraving and milling, imho)
- air-cooled spindle w/ VFD (note: requires 220V) (note 2: if you have a spindle or router already, you can probably mount it in the Probotix)
- dust collection
- aluminum stand
- Vectric Aspire (full version)
Once it was assembled (by which I mean assembling the aluminum stand and mounting the pre-assembled machine on top), I was carving my name in a 2x4 within 30 minutes (and most of that was fiddling with Aspire and learning the workflow). If you do decide to purchase from them, I’d recommend contacting them and asking for a quote with the options you’re interested in, especially if you’re ready to buy. They threw in the dust collection system for free if I would go ahead and finalize the order within 24 hours! (Just goes to show it never hurts to ask!)
I’m happy to answer any further questions about it .
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Thanks. That’s very helpful information. I just told myself no major equipment purchases in 2017. We’ll see if I can stick to that or not.
@johnwills … good thing you’ve got 25 days left in 2016 for major equipment purchases, then!
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Yeah, I knew someone would point that out. But I just bought a dye sublimation printer and a heat press that are due in later this week. That plus a few other smaller pieces of equipment pretty well maxed my budget for 2016.
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What about a preview spend of the 2018 toy budget? 
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Cool, which printer? Doing shirts?
Ricoh/Sawgrass SG-800. Will be doing shirts, mugs, flat substrates like wood and metal plaques. I’m sure that will all evolve as I get into it. I bought my Roland printer/cutter 2 years ago thinking I’d use it mostly for t-shirt heat transfers with a few decals on the side but I use it 70% for decals, 25% for heat transfers and 5% other stuff.
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Sweet! I’ve long been interested in a nice dye sub like that but as I’m a hobbyist, it is total overkill. I also worry that the expensive inks would dry up without frequent use, like a normal inkjet printer.
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