Axiom AR8 VS. ???

[Kirk Quesnelle]

Hey guys,

We have a laser engraving company but we are looking to expand into a
CNC machine. After a good amount of research, I'm kind of looking at the Axiom AR8

What do you guys think of this brand/company/model?

What other companies have compelling offers for this level

Thanks,
Kirk

[Art Mann]

This is just my opinion but I don't believe Axiom is in the same class as Camaster, Shopbot, Shopsabre and a few other commercial grade US manufacturers. These machines are more expensive but if you are intending to make money with these units, I think the difference in performance and reliability is worth it.

[Kirk Quesnelle]

Hmm I am interested in making money or I wouldn't be putting up the money.
I thought Axiom had a solid product for the price... is that not the thoughts around here?

[Steve Misher]

The Axiom is a solid machine. Doesn't cut as fast as the others, but costs less. The Pro models come with a spindle and the cooling system is self contained, so you don't have a bucket of water under the machine. As for me, I think 200 ipm cut speed is fast, but others, need to cut faster, so they buy a Camaster or other brands.
I personally like the pendant controller, others think it's stupid and feel they need a pc connected to their machine.

It just depends on what you feel you need!

[Keith Outten]

The faster a CNC machine is capable of running, the more mass and frame rigidity is required. Its pretty discouraging watching your machine frame flex and wiggle when your running a job that requires the gantry to move in short bursts and you have the speed cranked up. Just a couple examples of the reason for stronger frames and increased mass that you see on commercial quality machines.

Although I have always been a fan of ShopBot machines CAMaster uses a welded frame that is solid and will never shake, flex, wiggle or lose its plumb and square. ShopBots are bolted together and although they are very sturdy frames with plenty of mass they aren't as solid as a welded frame.

[Art Mann]

The Axiom may well be a good machine for the price. What I meant by my previous comment is that if your livelihood depends on your equipment, a little more money could pay off down the road in performance, durability and, early on, support. When I had a question come up with my Camaster, I was able to talk to one of the engineers who designs their machines. I don't think you would be able to do that with the Axiom. Through their forum, I am able to interact and get answers from people who have been earning a living with their brand of machine for many years. I am familiar with lots of people earning a living with the brands I mentioned. I haven't seen anyone who is earning a living with an Axiom. I am sure there are some but it just isn't that common.

I just noticed you are from Canada. The availability of CNC brands across the border may change the picture a great deal. I still say seek out a company with a long record of supplying commercial grade machines.

[Robert Bonenfant]

Hey Kirk,

The machine you are looking at will not make you any money - Maybe a lucky few will chime in but the chances of you making profit off this machine is slim. This machine is for hobbyist and is great for new comers into cnc routeing and it will help you understand and get a feel for the industry. You can make a few signs But thats about it sadly. It doesn't have the power or speed or reliability to even start to match up to a commercial machine. I would suggest farming out your cnc work until you have enough to get into a commercial machine (50K Plus). Its a hard field to jump into but once you can get a commercial machine and you hustle up the work you can make alot of money. Without a heavy duty machine its just not worth the effort to make something that takes an hour to make - your neighbor with a commercial router can cut it 5 minutes. 50 ipm vs 1500 ipm big diffrence - my current machine cuts well upto 600 ipm and we still want to move faster, diffrence from completing 1 job a day to completing three or four a day with the same man power.

Update : My comment wasn't meant to be rude in anyway - Im thinking in terms of running a business full time based on this machine would be hard to do - Im not the most experienced in anyway, Ive only been working with CNCs for about 7 years, have had my own shop for about 2 years now. Others have been doing this for over 20 years. - Im just adding my experience about cnc routers and my shop, I also didn't know this was a home based business this helps save on extra bills. In my shop I couldn't use this machine because it wouldn't be efficient enough for me to pay one of my guys to watch it and reloaded it ($18 per hour), this is how i base my option. If your running the machine than you would be able to cut that cost. I just base my prospective off being a production shop that makes 1000's of the same part each week.

[Art Mann]

I am going to have to differ with Robert. You can buy a good commercial 4X8 CNC router for less than $50,000. Here are some examples of my favorite brand.

http://www.camaster.com/cnc-routers/cobra-series-cnc-router/

Depending on what you are doing, you can get a much smaller machine that will make you money. I have a 2X3 machine and I make money with it. I could make a lot more but I am retired and don't want a full time job. You are in the engraving business. It doesn't seem likely to me that you would want to cut a lot of whole sheets of plywood but you never know where this might take you.

[Mike DeRegnaucourt]

Hi Kirk,

We have an Axiom AR8 and it is a solid well built (very heavy) machine. Of course it is not in the league of those $50,000 machines either. We too have a an Epilog laser and the AR8 makes a great compliment as well as addition to our business. Our business is a side business and not a full-time business though. Depending on the price range you are wanting to stay within, I think the Axiom AR8 could be a very good choice. The Axiom AR8 and AR6 are really the same machines that Powermatic offers.

Sure I would love to have one of the huge $50,000 machines but for a side business run out of our house I definitely do not have the room or the money. Just getting the AR8 down into the basement I had to hire a local piano moving company because the machine was just way too heavy for me and a buddy to lift. It took the piano movers four big guys to carry the AR8 down into the basement. That is without the stand! The stand alone is pretty heavy and beefy but luckily I could carry that down to the basement in pieces and assemble it down there. If our side business continues to grow and we can afford a larger shop as well as a larger machine, I would definitely be in the market for one of those expensive machines. When you are looking at $7000 to $8000 versus an outlay of $50,000+ for a small home-based business, the choice at this time made much more sense for us to go with the Axiom.

Just my 2-cents or well maybe 5.3-cents worth.

[Kirk Quesnelle]

Hey Art,

Thanks. I know what you mean.. I think i'm going to have a look at Camaster as well.

My needs are to slowly expand into cutouts and signage. My laser business takes most of my time.
This is more of something I want to grow slowly so I don't need a huge machine just yet.

I was looking at axiom because

1. It's available in Canada from Elite Tools in Quebec
2. I don't have to deal with customs etc.
3. For the money, $8,500 CAD, I though it had the most solid structure
4. I really like the way the customer service has treated me so far. I even got invited down to Ohio to see them in action and being put together as well as a demo. Very human and responsive emails from them. I like that because it reminds me a bit like my distributors at Epilog Canada. And they've treated me very well

However, I am still open to suggestions and more research is needed.

Thanks,
Kirk

[Kirk Quesnelle]

Hey Kirk,

The machine you are looking at will not make you any money - Maybe a lucky few will chime in but the chances of you making profit off this machine is slim. This machine is for hobbyist and is great for new comers into cnc routeing and it will help you understand and get a feel for the industry. You can make a few signs But thats about it sadly. It doesn't have the power or speed or reliability to even start to match up to a commercial machine. I would suggest farming out your cnc work until you have enough to get into a commercial machine (50K Plus). Its a hard field to jump into but once you can get a commercial machine and you hustle up the work you can make alot of money. Without a heavy duty machine its just not worth the effort to make something that takes an hour to make - your neighbor with a commercial router can cut it 5 minutes. 50 ipm vs 1500 ipm big diffrence - my current machine cuts well upto 600 ipm and we still want to move faster, diffrence from completing 1 job a day to completing three or four a day with the same man power.


Wow what a bold statement. "The machine you are looking at will not make you money".
Com'on man... lol it's 2017.

I started my business with a 5th gen hobby laser, passion and determination. I later upgraded to a 60watt helix paid in cash from the money I made.
Then I quit my job as a software developer and eventually my wife quit her job working in government. We now work out of our home workshop and
will do 20k this month.

Sure the machine is important but it's only a % of why we make money.

If I decide to go with the AR8, I will easily turn that into another income for us. Until we can get a bigger house and a bigger shop to
buy a bigger machine.

We're not cutting industrial parts here. Or have huge demand just yet. We just need a solid machine that can do a few signs and some cutouts for
our industry.

Kirk

[Kirk Quesnelle]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for writing all that. Nice to hear someone's take on the AR8!
I believe this is the machine we are going to go with!

Thanks,
Kirk

[Robert Bonenfant]

My comment wasn't meant to be rude in anyway - Im thinking in terms of running a business full time based on this machine would be hard to do - Im not the most experienced in anyway, Ive only been working with CNCs for about 7 years, had my own shop for about 2 years. Others have been doing this for over 20 years. - Im just adding my experience about cnc routers and my shop, I also didn't know this was a home based business this helps save on extra bills. In my shop I couldn't use this machine because it wouldn't be efficient enough for me to pay one of my guys to watch it and reloaded it, this is how i base my option. If your running the machine than you would be able to cut that cost. I just base my prospective off being a production shop that makes 1000's of the same part each week. I hope that you can buy this machine and make a ton of money, Make sure you keep us update on your success so you can prove me wrong :-) .

[Kirk Quesnelle]

After I wrote that, I realized you were probably basing it on a large big volume shop.
That makes sense

Thanks

[richard newman]

Interesting thread. There are certainly more than one type of commercial shop, not everyone is pushing tons of product out and trying to compete with all the other shops for the same jobs. Nor does everyone need to take huge cuts in heavy material.

I was a full time studio furniture make my entire adult (disputable) life. I made intricate, technically sophisticated work, and my reputation and success were based on the quality of the designs & craftsmanship, not the pricing. We weren't fast, had 2 employees, but we were good, with no real competition for what we could do. I had big industrial machines for their accuracy and capcity, not speed.

Semi-retired now, I make mostly banjos, trying to play that same game. I don't compete on price, i make a superior original product. Having finally plunged into cnc with a little Techno davinci 12" x 10" router, I'm hooked, thinking I need a larger machine, maybe 2' x 3' envelope. I won't be hogging off tons of wood, but need to be as accurate and repeatable as possible, to .001" if possible. Right now I use the router for inlay work and profiling cuts, I can forsee making decorative table top objects also, vessels and boxes, maybe some small furniture too. The Axiom machines seem to be a possibility, but I'm wide open to suggestions.

[Robert Bonenfant]

Kirk it sounds like you are moving up the ladder quickly ($20k per month is pretty good) So my comment to art might be helpful to you in the future - US Laws not Canada (But very good practices)

Home Equipment VS Commercial Equipment
Art,
My comment about 50k for a good commercial machine was made on a few buying points for myself and my shop. We run a commercial business with employees that requires us to meet OSHA Rules and guidelines - A home shop will not require this. Kirk also states that he runs a Engraving company which puts him into a new class (Not Sure how Canada Law Works - Probably similar but not certain)

Buying Points
1. We wanted a machine that had a power disconnect and lockout/Tagout - This is required by OSHA to service a machine in a commercial setting. I attached a picture below (Wont Upload) - Cammaster doesn't say it has this but it could and you can install it at your power disconnect located by your machine ($250 - $1000 Depending who does it).
2. A ATC (Automatic Tool Change) is a must in my shop, we completed a job last week engraving 22 table tops requiring 4 tool changes. OSHA requires you to disconnect and power down your machine when manually changing a tool bit that places any part of an employees body in the machines danger zone. At 25K RPM if someone has a wrench or hand on a bit or tool head and the machine starts they just lost a finger or an eye. Now you have to worry about work mens comp Cost, a Nice OSHA fine and your insurance company now has the Negligence card to use to fight your employees injury clam. This could close a small shop very quickly, Plus a ATC saved use 15 minutes per table top - .25Hours x $18 x 22 tops = $99 Savings on one job.
3. A strong spindle with variable speeds and vacuum hold down table and pump - A 12 Hp spindle worked for us but 20 hp would have been better. If you cant change the Rpms to match your bits and materiel then your bits die faster and your cleaning up more edges. We had to upgrade our vacuum pump from a 10 hp system, couldn't hold down all of our parts - I had to upgrade or I would have to pay my self and my guys to remove and sand tab marks - I did this for a month it was horrible cost me a fortune.

There are many other things I look for but Lets price a Cammaster for fun - (CAmmaster Offers these options but cost extra)
Machine - Cobra CR-408 - $28K
Shipping - $700 (3200 Lbs requires a Towmotor $400 to rent one for a day with drop off)
Bit Kit - $1200 (You need Bits)
Vacuum- $1500 (10 Hp Regen)
Dust Collector - $1200 (Not Getting far without this)
ATC- $15K (I think im close)
Power Install & Disconnect - $650 (20 Ft Distance - Im not running 3 Phase myself)
Total : $48,250

At my home shop I could drop the price to $20k or even a AR8 It would be great for me and it would be a good machine. When your dealing with a business and a commercial location and a commercial machine you cant skip on safety and practical upgrades. I worked in a commercial shop for 5 years - OSHA visited us about every six months, If they would have seen me sticking my hand into a Spindle with a live machine we would have been fined and I would have been fired. A home based shop is alot different than a Commercial setting with employees. Not all shops practice by OSHA standards but its the Law and you can loss your company really fast (I Cant loss my business I have a family, House, Cars that are paid for by my business profits) Working 10 hours a week on a machine is alot different than 90 hours and employees that count on a machine running all day (2 shifts) - There are 100s if not 1000s of shop that are safe and effective to ensure your product is make well. My grand father is 79 and was a machinist most of his life - He has 6.5 fingers left and a huge scar from his shoulder to his palm, all machine accidents at work and he has a great story for each one :-) ( I added my grandpas story because my employees are my friends and kinda like family and I would never make a unsafe environment to save a few dollars) - Can you live without a Tool changer in a good shop, Yes but for me it saves me time and makes a safer work environment.

[Gary Lyben]

I also have an Axiom AR8, and it meets my needs just fine. It's reliable and accurate, you use a pendant to control it, not mach 3. It's in my pole barn workshop.

You can't get an automatic tool changer, so it is certainly intended for a home or small business market, not one where you make 1,000's of identical parts per week.

For that market, it's a good choice, for a high production shop, it's not what you need.

[Art Mann]

Robert, suffice it to say that I don'y think your situation is typical of a lot of shops, including the one owned by the original poster. Furthermore, I would not call your estimates for installation and peripheral machinery as average either. Lest you think I am just an inexperienced hobbyist who doesn't know manufacturing, I was once a manufacturing manager for one of the nation's largest and most automated electronic manufacturing plants. We had about 3000 hourly employees and did almost a billion in sales per year. If there were OSHA problems, they were often mine to fix. In some cases, union safety requirements were more rigorous than OSHA.

[Kirk Quesnelle]

Thanks Robert for that great writeup. It really helped me see a very different perspective

I think I will start with the AR8 to get into the industry and then see how it goes

Thanks everyone

Kirk

[Mark Canada]

I'm guessing you're looking at this more for carving than making tabletops?

My primary concerns with the AX8 for this would be the rigidity of the gantry, its hard to tell from the pictures whether the gantry supports are solid or not, there is a shiny edge piece and then the black part, if it's just the shiny edge piece it's not solid enough, the gantry will be able to deflect under high loads (like clearance passes) and vibrate.

The extrusion based gantry cross beam is going to deflect and vibrate unless it has backing bars or something to stiffen it up.

The other thing would be the electronics:
* They are running one of the cheaper VFDs for that spindle by the looks of the controller interface... the cheapest to be precise. ** SPINDLE SPEED IS SET MANUALLY ** <-- this really really sucks.
* They are using a crappy chinese all in one controller. Don't expect great cut quality as motion control has a lot to do with that.

Positives:
* Has ball screws
* Has linear rails

The ballscrews however look like they might be 5mm pitch, which will really limit the speed if you want to upgrade the motors in the future. Reading the readme, they say to oil the ballscrews with a light oil... that is the exact opposite of the manufacturer's recommendations, and will wear the screws and balls.

200ipm (5000mm/min) is pretty slow. For me it's not really the cutting speed it's capable of but the rapid speed moving from point to point. I recently upgraded my primary router from all steppers to all servos (About CA$2.5k + labour) giving me 20,000mm/min rapids, I'm only using 1/3rd of the power, but my X axis ballnut is starting to need replacing which limits my speed. As an upgrade, this saves me about 30% time on the same toolpaths I was running before - from where I was waiting for the machine to finish (i replace pieces as the machine runs) to barely keeping up with it - huge productivity upgrade.

If you were to buy one, consider that over the first year of ownership you'll want to:
* Change the VFD out to a HY VFD at the very least. This will give you modbus control of rpm from Mach3/4/LinuxCNC (CA$300-500 + basic labour)
* Change the motion controller out to an Ethernet SmoothStepper or similar, and run Mach 3/4/LinuxCNC (CA$500-1000 + lots of labour).
* Change the stepper motors out for servos or at the very least closed loop encoded steppers. The difference in repeatability, quality and speed is rather huge. (CA$2500-5000 + lots of labour)

If you can find a more rigid machine running servos for about CA$1-8k more, you'll save yourself several man-days to man-weeks of labour and not cost any more.

You'll also want a good dust collector and compressed air for the machine, I'm running a Craftex CX-400 now from BusyBee which really seems to be about the sweet spot for me.

ATC would be *awesome* and if you're carving, really save either a lot of tool changes, or a LOT of machine time. But an ATC tends to add a minimum of $10k to the bill, so not as good for getting started.