After 10 years of using my PRSAlpha and going thru every tuning tip I can find, I can say that there is STILL a lot of inherent flex in the PRSAlpha. Other experts on this forum have shown me ways to develop cutting strategies that help compensate for this flex. They do significantly increase cutting time, thus loosing me money, but the cuts are very clean. When you watch a machine change directions and the whole machine shakes, you know it's NOT very rigid.

The claim to make things backward compatible is a half truth. Years ago, Shopbot and Thermwood worked together to develop an interface program between Thermwoods eCabinets software and Shopbot CNC's. It was and still is the backbone to my cabinet business. However, I am stuck at the 3.6 versions of SB Control software because upgrading to the 3.8 versions would break the SBLink compatibility, thus putting me out of business. Another problem I had with control software over the years was that when released it was never ready for production use. It went thru several bug fixes to get it close to production ready. I'm sorry, I'm not a beta tester. The software should be 100% bullet proof when it's released.

The one thing I didn't see mentioned in the blog article was the VERY weak link of using USB communication technology between the control computer and the CNC controller. This has been and will continue to be a VERY weak link in a Shopbot solution. Something needs to be done to eliminate the constant "lost communication" problem. Sorry Shopbot, but most of us don't work in a clean room. We work in dusty, staticy environments. That's a fact of production shops. Shopbot has still done nothing to address this problem. Having an electrical engineering degree so you can develop a good grounding system for your PC, CNC Controller, CNC machine and dust collection system should not be a prerequisite of owning a CNC machine in a wood shop. I was lucky in that my background was 23 years in electronics in the Coast Guard where I learned all about good grounding systems and how to implement them. I would surmise that most folks on this forum don't have this kind of background so the lost communications error problem is incredibly frustrating. After 10 years owning my CNC there is still NOT a solution to this problem. Shopbot FIX THIS DAMN PROBLEM!!!!