The Hidden Costs of CNC's!

for the last three years this machine has been my Workhorse but last week I upgraded to this it's my second time making a big investment in my shop specifically into cnc's and both times I've done this the hidden costs have surprised me on these machines there are the cost of the machine which you know up front and then there's everything else which rarely gets talked about and I want to talk about that in this video now I bought this machine about three years ago and while it isn't a hobbyist machine I think that it relates mostly or closely to what a hobbyist machine can do in terms of CNC machines the first thing you need for this machine to work is power it seems obvious but there are costs to that this is a 30 amp machine which isn't incredibly expensive but I did need to run power to it I needed to run a cord to it and you know that's a few hundred bucks in electrical and that's a cost you're going to want to think about if you're running your machine the next hidden cost is going to be dust collection you're going to need some sort of dust collection I recommend an actual dust collector not a shop vac you can get away with shopback but I recommended an actual dust collector but that's going to be a cost you're going to need to factor that in it's going to be Plumbing it's going to be a dust boot and it's going to be the actual dust collector tooling we have a lot of tools to do a lot of different things and these are not cheap these range anywhere from 30 bucks to some of these are 190 dollars I want to say this one's 230 dollars so they go even more expensive than that I have some tooling coming in for some jobs that the kit is 700 tooling is expensive also it's a consumable it doesn't last forever it will get worn down and it will go go bad you'll either need to have it sharpened which is another cost or replace it which is another cost these things are expensive and it's a thing you need to factor into your buy the next cost to consider is software you have to have software to run your machine this is Aspire you can get vcarve Pro these are paid programs I think vcarve Pro is about 700 bucks I want to say this is about 1200 or 1500 bucks it might even be more than that I can't remember what I paid it was a while ago but it's expensive there are free options out there they are not good everyone I know who uses them uses them for a very short amount of time and then eventually goes to something paid typically they're going to vectric which makes vcarve Pro or Aspire there are other options out there like Fusion 360 but I'm not going to go into Weeds on that you will need some sort of software that you can do CAD in which is your design software and camon which is your Machining software because you can design it in here but just designing it here doesn't mean that machine is going to cut it you need this software to tell that machine what to do hold down the spindle is moving very quickly you can't just lay a work piece on the bed and expect it to stay in place you have to find a way to hold it down there's many ways to do it I'll show you how I've done it my machine came with this integrated t-track in there it's a system that we kept because that's what it came with and we were happy with it and I didn't really want to spend the time and extra money to change it out there are other options out there I won't go into them but here's how we use ours we have lateral pressure clamps which keeps this from moving we have those options and then we have pieces that clamp down from the top down it's just a simple t-track clamp and it holds this piece in place the advantage to this lateral type is that you can almost tool this entire work piece without risking the bit hitting the clamp with this style obviously you can only work on the work piece from here so you're gonna have some waste and if you don't set up your job properly there's a chance that your bit will hit this and the bit will not win out over this it will explode the next cost I want to talk about is spoil boards they aren't very expensive but it isn't free you will need to buy a new spoil board every once in a while I think I'm on my third spoil board in three years so I'm getting about a Year's worth of life out of them it's not much it's like 60 bucks for a sheet to do this whole bed but it's not free so it's just something you're going to want to factor in and you may want a different configuration on your spoil board there's many options for that I'm not going to go into that but the material does cost something now let's talk about the costs of this piece this is a much more expensive machine and it has very similar hidden costs but they're just more expensive so let's talk about that first let's talk about electrical this is just a bigger machine and it needs more electricity so the electrical costs are higher and I'm not talking about the power bill it is definitely more expensive I'm talking about the electrical wires this is a 12 horsepower spindle and it also has a nine horsepower vacuum pump down here they're both three-phase machines the power coming into my shop is only single phase so they had to wire it so that it can run single phase and then convert it over to three phase for both of these two powerhouses that means I have to have very low gauge thick wire to power them it's expensive it's just expensive stuff I ran an 80 amp circuit to this coming out of this control unit going to the vacuum pump I'm running eight gauge wire and that's two gauge wire I want to say or zero gauge wire it's really heavy stuff and it's just very expensive just like the other machine this machine needs dust collection in fact it needs much better dust collection because it cuts much more material much faster I'm still running my old dust collector this will be replaced soon for now it's doing the job but it's not quite where I want it to be so I have to buy a new dust collector to keep up with this machine's capabilities this isn't a cheap setup you have to buy the dust collector you have to buy the plumbing you got to buy the flex hose you got to buy the special fittings to keep it suspended in the air all these different things they add up very quickly we're talking thousands of dollars just like the other CNC you need tooling but this machine has special tooling because it has an auto tool changer which is amazing and we'll go into that but it needs tool holders it needs new collets and by and large you can use the same bits from the other machine the older machine on the new machine but if you don't have either machine and you're buying a new machine you need to get tooling again now let's talk about the collets the old machine uses these ER 20 collets the new machine uses these er32 collets look at that size difference it's massive as you can guess these are more expensive it's not much more expensive but it is more expensive like I just said this machine has an auto tool changer and it's specifically an eight tool Auto changer right now there's one in the spindle but let's grab this one off here the spindle will actually come and pick these tool holders off this rack this tool holder is quite expensive these range anywhere from about 40 bucks to three hundred dollars each and there's eight on here so that adds up very quickly much like the other machine this requires software I need design software and machining software and as a business I'm trying to bring in more cabinet work and that's really the main reason why I invested in this machine we have traditionally done more one-off furniture pieces but now I want to do cabinet work and I've found software called Mosaic that is specific to Cabinetry and that is about 150 a month and that is an investment and it pays for itself but it's a cost it's something that needs to be factored in the next cost is the one that really caught me off guard because I didn't know I needed it at all and I didn't need it with the other CNC and that's air you need really good pneumatics to run this CNC I had to invest in an 80 gallon machine I think I could have gotten by with a 60 gallon but this machine is kind of like a safety net machine for me but this is 1500 bucks for the air compressor outside of the air compressor you've got to get a pre-filter and those aren't particularly expensive but it's a couple hundred bucks you can get them in a lot of places and then you need an air dryer because you can't have moisture in these lines the moisture in the lines will destroy the tooling over time and you just can't have it this is a direct expansion type of air dryer you can also get a desiccant style air dryer this is the more expensive one up front but it's cheaper in the long run the desiccant style is cheaper up front but you're going to have to be changing out filters all the time outside of the compressor and dryer and filters you have all the lines and all the adapters and fittings and all the stuff that goes with that it's a lot every time you have a transition you have to get a different fitting or a t Junction or a lever and pulley it's just so much stuff and it takes like a whole day of just setting up the air it's a pain in the neck I want to say I'm four or five thousand dollars just into air to get the CNC running just like on the other machine you need to be able to hold your work piece down this doesn't use clamps this machine uses the vacuum system this is a vacuum pump I want to say this is about nine thousand dollars for this vacuum pump that is not on the price sheet when you're buying it on the website so that's another line item that cost a bunch of money and it's really cool I mean it works really great and we'll go into that here but it's a very expensive machine so this kind of all ties together this we talked about the spoil board on the other machine this is the spoil board the vacuum system actually has so much strength and power it actually pulls air through the MDF and holds the piece down you can operate it that way and you can just have a piece of MDF down here and run your bed but you're not maximizing it and when you're investing this much money into tooling and Machinery you want it to be as maximized as you can possibly have it so let's talk about the cost of maximizing your vacuum bed underneath the MDF there is the vacuum bed this has these gaskets in here these are not free these are basically a consumable that you will use over time they should last you a long time but they are not free and they do cost money and you use this to segregate your zones on your vacuum bed this CNC has six vacuum zones and that's why you need the gasket grid it helps segregate those six zones off because sometimes you just don't need to do a full sheet work piece on top of the spoiler board I have this gasket grid this actually makes your vacuum suction about six times stronger because instead of having a full open sheet of MDF you have it you know confined down to these tiny holes that are on a one inch grid this is not free either it does cost money it's well worth the money because it maximizes your suction from your vacuum bed and like I said earlier if you're paying this much money for a machine you want it to work at its Peak Performance we've been running this machine for about a week we're still getting it set up and figuring it all out but we quickly learned that having the vacuum pump and the air compressor in the shop is one way too loud and two this thing creates a ton of heat it's pushing out air that's about 160 degrees so I am paying to cool the shop and I'm also paying to heat the shop and it makes no sense so what we're going to do is we're gonna make a shelter right outside the other side of this wall that's going to be for the vacuum pump and the air compressor that's going to be done this next week it has to happen there's no way we can leave these loud and hot machines in the shop it's going to be a nightmare in here when it starts getting real hot in the summer so the question is are the hidden costs worth it well I've already done this once I bought that CNC about three years ago and I had hidden costs involved with that one and I'll tell you right now that machine has paid for itself and it paid for itself in six months do I know for sure this one will pay for itself I don't am I very confident that it will I am I think it will and with the direction my business is going this is a move that makes a lot of sense for me [Music]

Channel: Coffey Custom Builds

Views: 358,063

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Id: GB3zaGtKMO4

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023