Hi Begat, I've seen some of General's line of cnc's in person. The Igus rails you are pointing out are used on the lower line. I can't complain about Igus, well engineered components. General is using one of Igus's newer linear systems (relatively). The linear rails are made from extruded aluminum and use a proprietary plastic bushing. This style of bushing has been used in woodworking machinery for several years. Earlier DIY-CNC plans specified using round rails and Igus's Drylin bushings (more stout version) as a means of linear travel. These are designed to work in dirty environments. So I can add they have a track record but I can't personally testify to the suitability.
I did notice that my vendor that sold the lower line of General CNC's dropped the model in favor of the higher end General machine that had standard block style of linear bearings. They would not admit why they dropped the other machine. I can only speculate poor performance judging by the specification of the spindle and motor combinations. I doubt the I-picture software is unique and worst case, it's written specifically for a board in the machine that drives the stepper motors of the machine. Did you see anything about the ability to import stl files? I highly doubt it. The grey scale conversion leads me to believe a much lower tech software scheme. The cheap machines if using proprietary boards and software will leave you with a door stop in the future. I'd say buyer beware. -Tim PS, No surprise, I'm still Alive :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: Begat To: legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 10:44 AM Subject: That Shrnking Learning Curve Problem and Cheaper CNC's -- A CNC Lathe from Oliver Hello All, Evidence that CNC's will be cheaper and easier to use. Oliver Machinery and General are both going CNC by putting their labels on machines being made by others. Oliver is issuing two inexpensive and cheap (plastic rail) machines. (Tim will die on seeing this!) Oliver has come out with a cnc lathe that focuses on 3d objects. At the cost of about $4k, you get the machine and 3d software that makes 3d stls with little to learn. (An STL is a file type.) It may be that this machine actually does three axis carving, if so the software is doing the conversion. It appears that I-Picture can't be bought separately. They know this cheap machine would be nothing without the software advantage. It may be the case that you can only use the alleged 3D files in their library. (If so, I'm sure they are really 2.5 D wrapped around the post). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDYa3EzW6BI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3sI735QpJw http://www.southern-tool.com/store/oliver-10inch-intellicarve.php Reduce the learning curve, and you'll make money. Begat -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Legacy Ornamental Mills" group. To post to this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/legacy-ornamental-mills?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Legacy Ornamental Mills" group. To post to this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/legacy-ornamental-mills?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
