Legacy Renegade CNC

[Sean Leonard]

I'm about a week away from making the largest purchase for my shop ever, besides the shop itself. I've been studying the new Legacy Renegade CNC that came out last year and received a quote for one. The company has been responsive to my questions, offers an extensive training program in Utah and even offered to have someone come onsite and set up/train me in my shop (at my expense of course). I'm also happy that they are willing to offer me the same end-of-year savings that I thought I missed out on by not ordering by the end of December. That's $6,500 in my pocket!

I know the Renegade is a new model, but does anyone have experience with any of their other machines? I found one post from a few years ago but not many responses from current owners. I'll probably spend the day today browsing through other forums that deal specifically with CNC's, but really wanted to see if anyone runs a small to medium size furniture or signmaking shop and has knowledge of Legacy Woodworking Machines.

Thanks!
Sean

[bobby milam]

You should check to see if they have their own forum. Would get much better machine specific information there. Many of the machines have some form whether in traditional forum or on facebook.

[Mark Bolton]

No Legacy specific information here but congratulations on getting close. It was ( and still is ) a scary purchase if your going for a reasonably large commitment (I guess unless youve got a job or jobs that are going to pay the machine off when it lands). Not sure how versed you are in software and cad but we were up and running with our machine in hours with no on-site support not that having a tech come out and save you a bunch of stubbed toes wouldnt be handy if you could afford it. We had an option for training at the manufacturer but never bothered. Im sure we would have picked up some tips and trick but Ive never had the luxury of that down-time.

Agree with Bobby on the forums though most machine specific forums while they are very helpful are often steeply populated koolaid so you often wont get the bad sides.

I honestly feel that with any real solid manufacturer, if your happy with their offering, and they dont have a horrible track record for support, your going to do O.K.

Good luck, keep us posted.

[Sean Leonard]

That's one worry I have. I went to the Legacy sponsored forum and it's like an eerie ghost town. Only two threads started in all of 2019, and most questions have zero replies.

There's a Colorado CNC Users Group on Facebook that I was told had a lot of Legacy users, so I posted some questions there. Odd thing is one of the moderators work for Legacy, so I don't know how unbiased the information will be.

CNCzone forum has a few enlightening posts about Legacy, but it's all from the early days of the company in 2009. Not a lot of info about them from modern times. If my research keeps turning up a bunch of dead ends, I may trust my gut and look for alternatives. Or at the least I would make a trip to their manufacturing plant in Utah to see for myself. Either way I'll follow up with a report to the forum...somebody's got to start documenting these guys!

[Jim Becker]

Legacy's, um..."legacy" was in the ornamental lathe area...the predecessor to the 4th axis sculpting lathes (which work differently than a traditional lathe) that are on many CNC routers these days. It was a very logical thing for them to move into the CNC area given that history because what they were known for was pretty similar in how it created carved table legs, etc., but without the electronic and computer control like we have today. Back when I was looking at my CNC options, I did watch a few videos for their system.

What you may want to do is to compare and contrast the Legacy offering with similar sized machines from companies like Camaster, ShopSabre, ShopBot, Laguna, etc., and also check out their online communities. Comparing specifications and costs is rote, but understanding the community behind it and feeling comfortable with that can certainly kick things up a few notches...the companies themselves generally have great support, but the larger user community gets you things you can't get from calling tech support, and at times when tech support isn't available, too. I can absolutely attest to how helpful a strong user community has been for me since I took the plunge and bought my CNC machine in early 2018. Look at all your options so you can be sure to make a decision that is best for your own personal situation.

[Brad Shipton]

I would not worry much about the forum, but you need to know if they have staff to help when you have questions. See if you can find a Biesse, CR Onsrud, or another big suppliers forum and look at the traffic if one exists. Commercial users do not spend much time online gabbing about their machines. They call, ask questions, get an answer and move on. I would be curious to know more about the electronics and the controller the machine is using.

I see to recall seeing legacy posting quite a few ads on the woodweb.