If you own, or are thinking of purchasing an Axiom cnc router machine, this is the group for support and sharing projects.
I will start off by saying I had purchased the Axiom4 basic a few weeks ago. My first impression is that it is a very rigid, solid, and well made machine. This is in contrast to the Shark Hd3 I ha initially bought for a little bit less and was disappointed with its plastic construction. On the shark I could literally make the spindle head flex around just with my hands, twisting on it. On the Axiom it is completely impossible to try to deflect the machine by hand, its simply too rigid. Needless to say I exchanged the Shark, also because the gantry clearance was less than 6" and the Axiom is a little more than 6. Rockler was very willing to supportive with my exchange and paid for the return shipping of the Shark, hats off to them. continued to next post.....
I did not purchase the Vectric software for the Axiom. For me its far too limiting in its finishing paths. I require more customizable toolpath options like Pencil Tracing, valley-remilling, UV coordinate surfacing and so forth. These advanced options will be a real time saver for when I go to hand-finish my wood work and molds. Instead of Vectric I purchased MADcam which is a plugin for Rhino5. I have been using Rhino for a decade now and personally think its the best, most versatile 3D cad software out there. Madcam simply runs as a tab inside Rhino, which is great, because I don't have to constantly import / export to do toolpaths. everything is in one file, one program. Most importantly MADcam even wrote a Post file just for the Axiom. It is available here. Anyways I haven't milled anything crazy or complex yet. When I do, I will post it up to this group. Best, Ben
