My CNC Hardware Selection

After painfully extended, extensive review of many forums and blogs, I narrowed my search down to my choices for the best, affordable CNC machines. 

My final candidates were in two categories:  Buy it or build it.

Buy it Choices:

The ShopBot Buddy BT48", and the RomaxxHS1.

Build it Choices:

The MechMate, and the JoeCNC Hybrid 4X4 plans.  And last but not least, the FLA300 

The Decision:

After much agonizing, I ordered both the  Romaxx and the JoeCNC Plans.

The Afterthoughts:

It is disturbing to me that my choices were both the low-cost options in pre-made and home-built machines , but maybe it is best to keep your costs low when starting out in CNC.  Better yet and cheaper in the long run would have been making up my mind and buying one!

Update: My final hardware choice.

The Machines:

The Romaxx is a manufacturer built, small (13 inch x 19 inch cut area), well made CNC machine that is built of steel and aluminum, and uses the best drives (Geckodrive 201s).  Mine has closed loop positioning encoders, a pre-drilled aluminum baseplate, and an MPG. 

The First Pictures link on the left shows some details of the HS-1's construction as well as the first project I carved with it. 

The JoeCNC machine is constructed of  8020 T Slot Aluminum Extrusions for the X, Y, and Z axis, Unistrut steel for the base and bed, HDPE for the motor mounts, and MDF for the carriages.  It's cutting area is 4 foot by 4 foot.  It is a very well designed homebuilt machine.  I am still acquiring parts to build it, I have started to feel like this will take forever.

The FLA300 is a4X4, 8020 aluminum, Rack & Pinion machine, which I have built, see my build log and pictures linked at left.

The Software: