New to Shopbot. Want to say hi.

[jzarski1]

Hello everyone, my name is John. Just purchased my first Shopbot. It's used but new to me :D. This will be the third machine in my shop. Started with a 24x24, then to a 4'x4', now I am a proud owner of a PRT 120x60. I know nothing about SB3 and will be asking lots of questions. I have been using Mach3 for the past few years. I think I will be good with partworks as I use Vcarve now for all my work. If anyone has any advice to get me started I would appreciate it. Looking forward to getting my machine up and running. I am picking it up Friday morning.

John

[myxpykalix]

If you've had cnc's before then the basics are well past you. I think you will find the Shopbot software far easier to use then mach. This is the place to ask any question. I have a prt alpha 120x60 with an indexer and love the space i have on the table to have a dedicated indexer bay and enough space to lay a full 4x8 sheet of plywood. I decided to buy the biggest and most stuff while i had cash in my pocket because i knew i may not have it when i wanted to upgrade later on, this way i am not limited in what i can do by table size. You will probably find out in short order what new things you can now do with the bigger size.

You'll find there are guys on here who are more mechanically knowledgable about the table and others who are more artisticly inclined and then a few who are both......LIKE ME!:eek::D lol welcome

[jerry_stanek]

If you use Vcarve pro just keep using it. It will output to your shopbot and your tool data base is there.

[CNYDWW]

Welcome to the club. I happen to have the same machine accept mine runs on Mach3. I can say, the road to building my own controller (budget reasons) was interesting. As soon as i get the funds up, a new controller from shopbot is in the cards.

Regards
Randy

[jzarski1]

Welcome to the club. I happen to have the same machine accept mine runs on Mach3. I can say, the road to building my own controller (budget reasons) was interesting. As soon as i get the funds up, a new controller from shopbot is in the cards.

Regards
Randy


Hey Randy,

I would love to hear how you did the Mach3 conversion. I spent all last night trying to read up on it and didn't find much that was worth talking about. It's going to be odd have two machines running Mach3 and one running SB. Not sure how my wife is gonna like this. She just started understanding Mach. Shoot me a PM if you every have a second the chat via phone. I will respond with my contact info.

John

[GDGeorge]

Just and FYI: with very little experience, I found the Shopbot driver a lot more self-explainatory than Mach 2 or 3.

[CNYDWW]

Hey Randy,

I would love to hear how you did the Mach3 conversion. I spent all last night trying to read up on it and didn't find much that was worth talking about. It's going to be odd have two machines running Mach3 and one running SB. Not sure how my wife is gonna like this. She just started understanding Mach. Shoot me a PM if you every have a second the chat via phone. I will respond with my contact info.

John

It's not really much of a conversion, just have to build a mach3 controller. I'm using a Gecko G540 with the original 44v power supply and a relay. My machine didn't come with a working controller. Just the computer case and a power supply.

Regards
Randy

[CNYDWW]

My advice would be to learn the ShopBot control software. If i had the choice i would've just ordered a new controller from shopbot.

[jzarski1]

It's not really much of a conversion, just have to build a mach3 controller. I'm using a Gecko G540 with the original 44v power supply and a relay. My machine didn't come with a working controller. Just the computer case and a power supply.

Regards
Randy
Well that could work out. I have an ertra G540 :D I think I will run the SB first see what I think then go from there is a few months. Can't wait to get it set up. I picked it all up today and it's sitting in my enclosed trailor. Might need some fourm help setting it all back up.

John

[WoodMarvels.com]

Welcome to the club... although my CNC experience is limited to the ShopBot Desktop, I'm sure you'll find the machine you got runs equally as well! The guys here are all pretty helpful too!

Jon

[darrell]

Howdy, My name is Darrell and have been doing my homework on shopbot desktop and wood like to know the difference between the shark and shopbot desktop. I think I know the answer, but there is a big defference in price. anyway thanks, Darrell

[bleeth]

Won't speak for Shark-This is not their forum! Desktop is darn high quality with excellent resolution.

[harryball]

The shopbot is like a shrunk full sized CNC machine. Quality is very good, works well and does not feel like a toy like a few other desktop/small cnc's I've witnessed. I have no experience with the Shark.

/RB