Creation Station CNC Router Creator Bundle (24 x 24 x 5)

Not ready for prime time!I bought the kit from Kickstarter, and with a great deal of frustration and wasted time, (and a few design changes and replacement parts) managed to get it assembled and working. If you do get it finished, you will have a solid and accurate small CNC router, but there are far easier ways to go.The estimates for four to 12 hours of assembly time are grossly unrealistic; the design has a number of flaws that make assembly and adjustment difficult.If you want a hobby machine to learn on, look into Shapeoko 3. It will have a slightly smaller work area, but will be cheaper, have better support and will work for you out of the box with far less hassle.If you need a machine for business, or plan to use it to make money, invest a few more dollars in an established brand like Shopbot. It will pay for itself in saved time and increased reliability and usability.If you really enjoy putting things together and insist on a large work area (not as important as you might think), design and build your own machine, starting from any of numerous designs on the internet.A few flaws in the Kickstarter kit:1. The machine shipped with a defective power supply, which failed within a couple hours of use. Reading forums of other users, this seems to have been common. Don’t count on receiving a replacement any time soon.2. The designer has a lousy record of customer service. A great deal of defensiveness and even hostility is on display in the forums between him and his Kickstarter backers. I don’t think he is dishonest; I think he got in way over his head, and is not cut out for customer service.3. There are something like 30 pages of instructions for assembling the kit, but no exploded diagram showing how parts join together. It is something like going from New York to San Francisco without using a major highway. Thirty pages of turn by turn instructions doesn’t remove the need for a map.4. The design of the kit seems to be driven by the goal of putting as much of the wiring as possible out of sight. Maybe that gives it a neat professional appearance, but it makes everything much more difficult to work with. For example, the limit switches for the X axis are difficult to access and adjust, especially when the machine is near its limits. The limit switches for the Y and Z axis are IMPOSSIBLE to access without fully disassembling a large part the machine. These are the parts that are mostly likely to need adjustment or repair. Put them where you can get at them.5. The wiring for the limit switches is 18 AWG. That is adequate for the voltage (3 volts) but absurdly fragile and difficult to work with for a kit. You are going to be splicing lots of connections, and they are going to break all the time and make you nuts. Spend a couple dollars (literally a couple dollars), and get some heavier wire. It will save you hours of time.6. Many parts in the kit are highly symmetrical, so it is not only possible but far too easy to put them in upside down or backwards. A designer who was kind to his users would move one bolt hole a fraction of an inch, so it can only go together the right way. This designer is not kind to his users.7. Some parts are not as pictured in the instructions.8. There is evidence that aspects of the design changed along the way, so there are holes drilled that are not used, or holes that are larger than necessary.9. The instruction frequently said that parts were made to fit tightly, and should be tapped into place with a mallet. Sometimes true, but sometimes they weren’t even finger tight. Sometimes there was daylight visible and parts had to be shimmed.10. The “fixed gantry/Moving X stage” design makes the footprint of the machine twice as large as other designs with a similar work area. This machine takes up a huge area of your workshop.11. The major selling point is the large work area, but that is not as important as you may think it would be. If you want to cut a really long part (say skis or a rib for a sailboat), you will need to do it in sections anyway. Once again, a moving gantry would be preferable for this.12. Somewhere midstream, the designer changed which side of the machine is the “Front”. This labels the X and Y axis in a way that defies commonly used conventions. Yes, the conventions are arbitrary, but why make things even more confusing?13. All parts are labeled with letters, and all the motors are labeled “Part X”. Thus the X,Y and Z motors are all labeled X. As I said, the designer is not kind to his users.I could go on and on, but this gives you an idea what you will be up against.Your money can be far better spent elsewhere.

Solid machine and well built I just got it all put together and will update this after I have been running the machine for a while. The price point makes it worth it.

Buyer be ware. This product was funded through Kickstarter Summer 2014 and many backers have yet to receive their machine. Communication is not the manufacturer's forté.