Hello Everyone, This is my first post on the forums and I wanted to introduce myself. I have been in the sign making business for around 10 years now as an employee & most of my experience is in design and vinyl graphics. Since I enjoy my job I decided I wanted to do something slightly different but still be able to apply my knowledge. Before I purchased this router table I was running a plasma table in my home garage for around a year. The table was really cheaply manufactured and was flimsy but good enough for a hobby. I eventually lost interest because the plasma table wasn't able to cut aluminum effectively & the amount of dust on everything was getting out of hand. The added cost to convert the hobby level table into a water bed just wasn't worth the time or effort. I noticed a Shopbot for sale one day for a decent price that wasn't actively being advertised. So I decided to get rid of the plasma table and pick up this older shopbot. The gantry on the shopbot weighs almost as much as my old 5'x10' plasma table without the slats probably. The shopbot came with all the original paper work, software & training manuals from 2006. I believe the table is a PRT standard table.

I have a couple of questions for you guys running the older tables.

1. My table came with Part Wizard 3.2. Since more then a decade has pasted since this software was released what are you guys using now on the PRT tables? I will not do any graphic design in Part Wizard. I would only import dxf files I create & run the CAM software to process the cuts so I don't know if upgrading would be worth it in the long run.

2. Is the old shopbot control software reliable?

3. Upgrading the controller worth it?

4. I plan on cutting mostly 0.063, 0.080 & 0.125 aluminum... What are your suggestions, tricks, and tips for successfully cutting it?

Thank you for any information.
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