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56 of 57 people found the following review helpful.
One of the best investments I have made in tools!!!
By astainless
Zen Toolworks DIY CNC Machine Review:
Short reviews are great but I decisive that mine ought to be a bit longer and in depth so any person who reads it will have a better idea of what precisely a Zen Toolwork CNC Kit is. In short It is a GREAT item. If you want a short review see below.
Short Review: A Must have. One of the Best Investments I have ever made as far as tools go. Buy it!!!
Long Review:
A MUST HAVE for any person who wants to get started with CNC with an splendid well made precise and lowpriced machine. If you want to design prototypes, carve foam, plastic metal or wood (this machine is perfective for doing wood engraving as it has a fantastic detail level even when down to exceedingly little designs with the right bits) or even if you just want to make little habit and/or precision elements on occasion for models or RC vehicles; or perhaps just do a little habit engraving once in a while this machine is more then capable to handle the task without emptying your wallet. And it’s a Kit! So you get to have a great time building it!
Arrival: From the time it shipped to the time it was at my door was 2 days. I live in NJ and the CNC kit came from CA so that was very fast shipping!!!
Upon opening the box I found everything very well packed, very tight and secure. I did a elements count and everything is where it will have to be with a few extra screws, bolts and washers.
Parts:
The material that makes up the body of the machine is very strong. Much more inviolable then I would have initially though. The box will have to have weighted in at over 40 pounds, as the body material is very heavy and sturdy. Anything that was not made of the gray body material (such as the driver screws or the rails) was steel or stainless steel.
Quality: All elements except the motors are brand new. However in the description it does say that the motors are used. Considering that the Stepper motors are probably the most costly percentage of a CNC machine this is where the real savings are as the motors while employed are very well made and appear to have a lot of life left in them. I don’t think I will be burning out any of these 3 motors any time soon. So everything came as described or better. For the price salaried the quality may not be beat and outperforms what most humans would suppose for a CNC machine priced well beneath $1200 even beneath $300 as Amazon has them listed at an absurdly low $299.95. As far as CNC machines go less then $300 is near free when you compare it to others of the same size. This machines capacity appears to on par and in numerous cases better then the “cheap” desktop models others are selling for $1100 on up. After building it and seeing what may be done I may say that this is one of the best deals out there for any type of CNC machine or tools. All moving parts have multiple ball bearings so not one thing is dragging. Even after reading all the positive reviews I was still enjoyably astonished at the sturdy design and well made parts.
Ease of Assembly: All you in truth need is a cheap Walmart $1 Hex Key set, a little vise, a Phillips screwdriver, a power screwdriver (saves a lot of time but not actually needed) and numerous mutual sense. Total tool cost for what is necessitated to assemble this kit if you don’t have any tools at all (everyone has screw drivers right?) would be less then $30 and that is with a cheap power driver or when it comes to $10 to $15 without the power driver. The tough share is getting the little side of the driving screws to fit the ball bearings as it is a tight fit and they need to be pressed into the bearing. I found it easiest to get the driving screws into the bearings basi as I do not have a drill press handy (a cheap $40 one from Sears could do it) and then use a little vise to gently press the edges of the bearings into the body parts. If you have access to any kind of drill press this may be done in truth easy using the press to put the driving screw into the bearing after it is in the body. It took me regarding 4 ½ hours to assemble and I had to back up a few steps because I forgot to check the alignment of a few holes (this means I put a few panels on backwards because I was not paying attention) and had to disassemble a few steps back to reposition a few of the body parts when it comes to 3 or 4 times. That was my fault however. The only customization that needs to be made is a mount for your cutting tool. I have a dremel tool so manufacturing something was easy enough. Even a quick fix nevertheless would be fine because once attached you may use the machine to make a better mount. I will say I had a outstanding time just building this machine. I am already tempted to order another one just to build it. Maybe I may talk a few friends into buying them and letting me do the assembly. Everything was easy and well made and fit where it was suppose to fit. When you read the online instructions for assemblage it says that you must take your time and it does not have to all be built in one day but once you get started you just get into it and have such a good time that you genuinely want to finish it all at once. This was a 0% feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized build and very fun.
You will still need to buy a power supply and driver card but they may be found cheap online. You will have to make your own interface cables for the driver to talk to the motors but it only takes when it comes to 10 min a cable (You will need 3) if you want to wrap it nice and make sure it is all insulated. This is the one area you don’t want to be cheap on price or time when it comes to (I expended in regards to an hour doing cables and in regards to $10 for wires, tape and connectors at Radio Shack. Get the color potpourri pack. It helps to color code). If you cross a line you could fry out your board or your stepper motor so make sure everything is divided nicely and insulated well. Most significantly make sure you have a male/female Printer cable! I did the whole build, wires and all; and at 1:30am I was looking forward to a arid run with just a sharpie to check out the level of details that may be done and to make sure everything was working correctly after building the unit and getting all excessively affected emotionally in regards to running it when I realized I had no printer cable. Plus it was snowing so severely that everything was going to be closed the next day so I had to wait a few days to get one. These are all over EBay if you just type “CNC Cable” in the search so if you don’t have one you may get one shipped for less then $10 if you look online. If you have any mom and pop computer shops nearby they may have one there if you look and odds are it will be free or only be a few dollars as the cables are not applied much and just take up space. Everything went together genuinely easily. Electronics as well.
Size: This is a desktop CNC Machine so it is little sufficient not to be in the way, when it comes to the size of a huge desktop laser business printer or when it comes to 1 ½ times the size of a desktop printer/scanner/copier and 2 times as high; which is great if you do not have a lot of room. I presently have mine sitting on a rolling laptop table and it takes up when it comes to 60% of it. 100% with the card and power supply but that is because I have it mounted to a Plexiglass base as I am in the routine of building a housing for the electronics) Do not let the size fool you however. The work area sounds little on paper but once it is built there is more working room then initially thought. There are a lot of things that may be fictitious with a machine this size that would surprise you. If you check out Youtube there are a good deal of good postings of some of the basic things this machine may do as well as a great video of a detail engraving on an aluminum block. While Zen Toolworks appears to be a young company and this CNC machine is still a somewhat new product, I suppose to see a lot more of these videos soon as it is the least highpriced machine you may buy and one of the best investments anybody may make for their shop. This desktop CNC Machine is just big sufficient to make closely anything you could want a little 3 axis CNC machine to make in the work area AND the worktable is raised sufficient so that a more spectacular then 7×7 item could be fabricated and/or engraved in segmentations without the frame getting in the way. It is little sufficient to be out of the way if you have a little shop or even an apartment with fixed working space.
Level of Detail: The original thing I did once I got the machine built was to use a little metal bar and attached it as a mount with galore screws to hold it in place and some zip ties for a pen so I could do a test run on a sheet of paper. I employed Mach3 and jogged the unit manually to see how exact it is. Jogging produced a good level of detail but the little amount of time that it takes to tap a button doesn’t concede for a real test of the machines detail levels as you may not get genuinely fine levels just manually jogging the machine. So the next thing I did was to use Mach3′s Lazy Cam feature and just typed out my Fiancés name, picked a font and did a drag and drop. It took with regards to 5 min to do the 8 letter name. I had the machine set for a reasonably little font with the lettering outlined so it was a hollow letter which is why it took that long to make. The font size on paper would be similar to a #10 font size if you were to use a printer. Just using a cheap pen and only being held in place with zip ties I was competent to manufacture an exceedingly precise and very fine level of detail. No misses, skips or miss alignments. It doesn’t sound like much but taking into account the little size and type of font once you see it done it is very impressive. To get an idea find a hollow text font and in size 10 print out a name. This machine did that with a pen and with a much thinner line going point by point without missing a beat. Let’s say that after that I was very impressed. Not only was it perfectly drawn the round parts of the path where genuinely round and not just short lines. Next I found a Dragon effigy I liked so I employed inkscape to invent a Vector path and had the machine draw it out. It was a reasonably elaborated path and again it was hollow like the text so each line was genuinely 2 lines and each object had a border. Total time was a little over 27 minutes and the detail level again was splendid and very surprising. I am very impressed and the fine level of detail that may be achieved with this machine and it is more then worth the price. Again one of the best tool investments I have ever made. The level of detail is far better then I expected even after reading the other reviews and I plan on doing a good deal of wood carvings this week. If you have to do any engraving, prototyping, fabrication, light production or 3D carvings in particular in wood this is the best you may get without spending various thousand dollars.
UPDATE: —————
After a few weeks of playing around I have been competent to give rise to elements from Wood & Plexiglass with no problems. The level of repeatability is amazing. I may cut 3 habit shape panels from plexi and lay them one on top of the other and they are perfective copies of each other right down to the drill holes lining up utterly each time. I also did a lot of wood cutting in layers. After 3 or 4 passes with this machine over the same spot decelerating cutting a thick wood portion out everything looks like just 1 cut. this is a quality product.
15 of 16 humans found the following review helpful.
Great Kit, Awesome Support
By C. Frederick
The kit got to the east coast in lightning time. The kit is very well manufactured, and comparatively easy to put together. The documentation is new, and a little lacking, but Zen has already made improvements in the week I’ve had my kit. You are buying this from an American little business owner, who ought to spend all day on Google supporting his product. If you have a question, it will be answered directly by him, in less then an hour. It is likewise supported thru Google groups with a forum of some welleducated persons as well, it’s very newbie friendly.
14 of 15 humans found the following review helpful.
Awesome kit that works like a champ!
By J. Hutchinson
I ordered this item from an Ebay auction. It came packaged into a little USPS box, cautiously and neatly. All the parts were there with extras as well.
It took me when it comes to three hours to assemble it. Make sure you have a good vise with at least a 3″ jaw to help you set the bearings and bushings. Keep an eye on the orientation of the elements as well so you only have to build it once 
The online build guide is well thoughtout and easy to follow. And the online community is active and ready to help.
My goal was introductory to build a model CNC mill. To begin from the beginning and learn as much as possible. This kit surely did that for me. Once finished, and beneath computer control, I stuck a little pen into the spindle and did a great deal of lettering with serifs. Even beneath high exposure the curves and tips were perfect. Very precise and capable unit!
Ive been cutting foam now for casting molds and just happy as may be. The performance is good, the accuracy is high, and it is just plain fun to watch it run. Plus the kit aspect makes it even more fun
Thanks again for the coolio and fun project! The price is outstanding for the instructional value of this kit, and when your finished, you get an great tool for your workshop too boot!
Pictures of my unit [...].
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