Blue elephant CNC

[Matthew Herrera]

Hey guys, decided to start a new thread on Blue Elephant. My original thread was asking about Laguna CNC reviews. However after some advice it looks like many US CNC’s are just re hacked Chinese ones that cost twice as much. Blue elephant seems to have great prices but I wanted to hear from people who may own one or have dealt with the company. What was you experience? Would you recommend doing business with them?
Do they make a quality product? Thanks for your help before I drop thousands overseas.

[Matthew Herrera]

Anyone? No one knows about Blue Elephant CNC???

[Bill George]

Anyone? No one knows about Blue Elephant CNC???

Kind of scary isn't it when nobody else has heard of them? If your just a hobbyist then it makes no difference what you buy. Planning on a business venture, and it breaks down when your best customer has sent you a rush order. Parts shipped from China or Michigan. Which do you think would get it going faster?

[Jim Becker]

The current issue of Woodshop News has a piece that mentions a great number of different CNC machines and manufacturers...I don't recall that the brand you mention was part of that article. I also agree with Bill. I started my shopping journey mostly from a hobby point of view and had a vendor in mind. It was a nice machine for a good price, a "US brand" but manufactured in Asia--but after communicating with a bunch of folks that I've "known" for a long time and know to be trustworthy, I opted to kick things up for a US made machine and a shift from strictly hobby to focusing more on paying commission work for my shop as an alternative to working part time for someone else in my retirement. I'm investing about 50% more into the machine I selected, but I'm good with that...I know I'll have support, both from the manufacturer and the very active community around the vendor I chose. You stated in your other thread that you're working to start a business...there is already plenty of risk with that just because new businesses are hard to keep going until they become profitable. CNC, however, seems to have a lot of opportunity, but it also requires the business to be reliable as Bill mentioned. I urge you to consider whether or not you want to add an extra layer of risk over what already exists "just because"...

[Art Mann]

I would not buy from a company that doesn't even have a US office.

[Brad Shipton]

I would look at that shiny rectangular box at one end that has a ton of wires going into it and ask myself how much I want to learn about it should something go wrong? VFD wiring, breakout board, stepper wires, driver's, computer wires, input/output wires..... They look like a fine built machines, but support is valuable if something goes wrong. Do they have a track record of helping customers after they have your money? It seems nobody has any idea, yet we can all go read about horror stories importing machines direct from China. The cost of a CNC is the sum of its parts plus a bit of profit. Less cost, cheaper parts. Blue Elephant advertises on the CNCZone site. If you cannot find anything there, I don't think they are moving many units. There are some frugal characters on the zone site.

[Jerome Stanek]

I would look at that shiny rectangular box at one end that has a ton of wires going into it and ask myself how much I want to learn about it should something go wrong? VFD wiring, breakout board, stepper wires, driver's, computer wires, input/output wires..... They look like a fine built machines, but support is valuable if something goes wrong. Do they have a track record of helping customers after they have your money? It seems nobody has any idea, yet we can all go read about horror stories importing machines direct from China. The cost of a CNC is the sum of its parts plus a bit of profit. Less cost, cheaper parts. Blue Elephant advertises on the CNCZone site. If you cannot find anything there, I don't think they are moving many units. There are some frugal characters on the zone site.

Not that I am going to buy one but according to their web page that shiny box contains German made Siemens control and delta inverter along with Yaskawa servos and drives

[Bill George]

Well if the OP is experienced in CNC and not afraid to do some wiring and control changes, you really can not buy all the parts and frame for the price of Importing. Stepper motors can be sourced here as well as controllers.

The issue would be if we have the normal eBay China equipment purchaser who is clueless about everything who now comes on here expecting someone to bail him out. He needs step by step instruction and gets mad if no one helps.

BTW the Chinese can build to whatever price point needed, however what you see is not always what you get.

[richard newman]

You might want to take a look at this thread where Gary Campbell took a Chinese 2 x 3 machine and brought it up to his standards to sell here. I bet that's a real nice machine now!

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....-by-3-for-sale

It's clear the Chinese can make high quality goods if they choose, problem is figuring which manufacturer is doing that, and then dealing with them to ensure you get what you are expecting. Or be prepared to do whatever remediation is necessary. Seems Matthew is willing and able to do that.

Matthew, have you tried contacting Blue Elephant to ask if they've sold any machines in your area?

[Jerome Stanek]

Camaster started out that way buy Chinese machines and relabeling them and selling them as Camaster.

[Matthew Herrera]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Yes I do want to start a business. There’s always that balance of budget, what you can afford and what you really want. I would probably get a Camaster if I could afford one. Allot of businesses seem to import from China and just beef up the machine. Laguna???
Same thing with laser cutters. I’m pretty mechanical, built my own hobby CNC, understand the basics minus the programming code. Wires and motors don’t scare me but I don’t want to get ripped off or waste a ton of time fixing a sub standard machine. I want to run a business not be a mechanic on my tools.
That being said the price is so much less than the US machines.
ShopSaber and industrial CNC seem pretty good, US built machines but almost double the price....

[Bruce Page]

What size are you looking at? There are a few used Camasters on the camheads website.

[Brad Shipton]

If you are not scared of the wiring, build your own. The acorn controller from Centroid is gaining popularity and if you are up for the challenge there is lots of info out there. I am about to start retrofitting my controls to something I like, and it is starting to look like fun. There is an endless amount of research you will need to do, so make sure you have that kind of time. I know mine will be frustrating at times, but I cheated and found an experienced tech that will prepare the wiring diagram and consult if I need help. I work with a steel fabricator and he built his own CNC plasma. He needed a large frame, so he imported the frame and gantry from China. If you are not up for that, have a set budget, and are not willing to change the machine frame size, I would stick to someone like laguna or another that has a storefront. That is not my deal, but it seems to be working well for Robert and many others.

It is hard to find much info online for import machine because threads always tend to go sideways in a hurry once you mention China. That is why I suggested you PM Robert in another thread. In this forum, the Yellow ones tend to be the most popular, and I get why. You can read guys like Joey and many techs responding to customers online when they have problems, and James has spent hours and hours over the years putting out good information on different sites. There is also the simple fact that hobbiest's tend to be proud of their machines, so we spend more time online talking about them on forums. Business people see a machine as a tool, and any number of shop guys are actually using them on a daily basis. Beyond completing the task at hand, and making them money, they do not really give too much thought about the machine unless it is broken.

I think it a bit odd to build a business around a machine. Machines solve problems for business, not make a business. I get what you are thinking, and many have done that. In all honesty, I think your $15k budget for a 4'x8' "business" type machine is too low. A 4'x8' machine tends to be the start of cabinet boxes or large signs. Building cabinet boxes can be a good business, but unless you are somewhere where there is no Home Depot, I would want to already be a successful cab shop to compete in that market. I can order the parts for simple boxes at an endless number of places and I live in the boonies. What is driving your table size and what do you think you are going to be using it to build?

[Matthew Herrera]

Thanks Bruce I’ll take a look!

[Brad Shipton]

For those type of carvings I would pay close attention to the acceleration speeds the machine can achieve. I have done those type of carvings in cab doors, and in a man door your machining time can become ridiculous with an under powered machine. The fine details are made with a 1/16" or 1/8" ball nose bit moving across your part at 1/64" (or less) spaces. I was going to make a nice large carving for a friend on my machine, programmed it out (roughing, then fine) and it was 19hr of machine time. Needless to say, I opted not to build that. To cut that time down takes fast acceleration/deceleration rates and that is only attained with a larger servo.

My machine came from 1500mi away and I looked at one that would have came from 2,500miles. I understand that.

With your budget and business plan flexibility I would start with a smaller machine like others have done and move up later if it works out well. The little guys are easy to re-sell, but you will take a bath trying to re-sell that $8,300 machine even if anyone wanted it later.

Richard, I drive a 4x4 chev, but I needed a car I would likely drive a non US version.