Hi all,<p>I am working on a nano (pico, really) brewery project and need a bunch of custom aluminum and wood pieces for our tiny brewhouse and barroom build.<p>I have a large workspace and am considering a range of CNC machine and laser engravers. I would like a the option (or as a separate purchase) of a 4-axis tabletop rotary option to experiment with small scale laser-etching of cans as well.<p>I find my self in the modern internet dilemma of google search being almost unusable due to pages of SEO spam, while reddit is also relatively gamified in this product category as well. Youtube has a ton of content here, but it's also now mostly a proxy for sponsor-creator view battles, and it's tough to wade through the many, many hours of semi-honest use/reviews when I have the day job and fam. Hackaday is great...for hacks, but not really expert reviews, and Make magazine seems to have minimal coverage here as well.<p>Where should I go to figure out how to get what I need in this space? Are there any HN users with enough experience in this domain that you can offer recommendations, search terms, or major product pitfalls to avoid? I am willing to go into the mid 4 figures for a good product(s) that can help me with both bar furniture trim, aluminum fittings, and laser engraving. Would love to learn as efficiently as I can what may suit my use cases. Thanks!
If you want parts, outsource the manufacturing.<p>If you want a new, expensive hobby, look into CNC machining. Don’t expect cheap parts, though.<p>> I am willing to go into the mid 4 figures for a good product(s) that can help me with both bar furniture trim, aluminum fittings, and laser engraving.<p>Mid 4 figures is about where you’d end up with an entry level 3-axis CNC, workholding accessories, tooling, and all of the other accessories you’ll need to set up the machine and cut aluminum correctly.<p>That budget is way too low for 4-axis <i>and</i> laser engraving.<p>I’d outsource the parts and start with a small $3-6K hobby CNC from a known brand (Bantam or PocketNC for example). Learn the basics of machining, CAM, workholding, and other basics on small parts on a small machine, then decide if you want to go bigger.<p>> and it's tough to wade through the many, many hours of semi-honest use/reviews when I have the day job and fam.<p>If you don’t even have time to research and learn the basics, you definitely won’t have time to learn how to properly operate a machine and CAD/CAM. I think you’re underestimating the work that goes into even basic CNC machining.
You should go to Boss Laser for the laser cutter/engraver and CNC masters for their Baron CNC mill. Both of these have 4th axis options. I have a ton of experience setting up engineerong labs for big engineering and medical device companies. I'd be happy to chat further and offer any advice or help. I have a website with contact info, just Google my name.
I've dealt pretty heavily in this area (Bought and operated several CNCs over the years) Your price point is going to limit your machines to almost exclusively Chinese imports<p>Lasers: Boss laser imports machines from China and provides great American-based support. If you can figure things your self, check out Cloudray laser. They ship straight from China; keep in mind the customs/shipping risks. I've purchased from both before. If you're not running production jobs, 75W C02 should be fine. I prefer 150W RECI C02 laser tubes. The go-to Chinese controller is made by Ruida. At the end of the day; most of these Chinese laser brands all have the same part suppliers, just different levels of QC and quality assembly. I'd avoid Glowforge and similar brands. They are a great for first time users at home; but I'd be more worried about work volume, laser power, and future spare part availability. I know quite a few people that outgrew their Glowforge-like machines and went with bigger more industrial imported lasers.<p>Purchase Lightburn for sending jobs from the PC to the laser.<p>Routers: I have a few friends that have a larger Shapeko-like machine that works well for Etsy-like products. Think embossed cutting boards, wall art etc. Granted there part is size like 12"x 24". The machine isn't stiff (compared to industrial units); but it gets the job done. Whatever machine you purchase you'd want to stick to linear guide rail motion system for all the axis; avoid the roller-wheel style motion systems if possible. If I personally was going to buy a new router in that price range; I'd buy either an Avid Pro machine or import a chinese machine straight from Alibaba. Start with checking out OMNICNC in China. Depending on your location; check out classifed ads, or talk to some local signmakers. They might be selling their older US-made Multicam machines for cheap.<p>I can give much more specific recommendations based on your production rate and part size/features/materials.<p>EDIT: Mirroring what other people are saying. If you just need some parts just to get brewery going, then I'd sub this out to someone else. If you have time, money, desire, love to spend many hours and thousands of dollars to learn the art of manufacturing, then go for it. But I'd recommend to solve the goal at hand first. Your brewery.
I built a CNC router for machining enclosures, from a kit. The machine weighs about 200kg. I built it because I needed to machine specific types of materials and wanted a high RPM spindle and special cutters to achieve certain finishes. I was not very concerned about achieving crazy tolerances. Ready to go serious CNC mills were going to cost 50K+ and were not built for the type of parts I wanted to machine. The machine ended up costing about 5K and I spent a month building it. It was a crazy difficult process and I cannot recommend this to anyone. The result is great, but then I realized I have no time to machine stuff and that it is hardcore labour even if you are not doing the actual work, the machine is. I also have to point out that the major hurdle is mounting and holding parts, and switching tools. So if you are serious about production you need really good/fast tool changers and advanced work holding tools, and automatic tool measurement/touch off. Having to screw around with workholding and switching/touching off tools eats away massively at your time. These days if I would buy a new machine I would go for a brother speedio or robodrill (rumoured to be used for the apple watch). But I would not buy a new machine unless I could afford someone to operate it. So TL;DR - don't build a machine unless you have a really good reason to do so, and realize that machining is labour intensive work that can potentially be very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.<p>In your case it sounds like you don't need very high precision parts and the parts are not very complicated? Perhaps you can go to a metal shop to have these made and you might not even need CNC machining. In any case, I would seriously just consider outsourcing the parts and not buying/building a machine and doing this yourself.