HPcutter CNC Router Machine Wood Engraving Machine Engraver Machine 6040Z 3 Axis Arts Crafts Cutting Tool with 1.5kw VFD (6040Z 3 Axis)

Decided to review this after having used it for a few weeks now and thought it worth highlighting the problem areas, particularly safety issues.I have the 3040T model and it was supplied by HPcutter.On arrival the shipping carton appeared to have been crushed on one corner. The router was packaged well, including a strong wooden platform for protection but even so one edge of the router aluminium frame was bent. Luckily this was mainly cosmetic, as it occurred where the longitudinal (Y axis) cable carrier was mounted and the damage had not caused the basic frame to distort. The router was checked manually with verniers and lasers and found to be moving in all axis to an accuracy better than a 10th of a millimetre so the decision to keep it rather that return was made as the chances of another one being delivered with transport damage seemed quite high.Before being connected electrically I ran some basic safety checks and found three problems that made it potentially unsafe.The first was rather obvious, the unit was supplied with a European plugged IEC C13 power cord, not a UK plugged lead. The supplier had included a European to UK travel adaptor but this does not pass through the earth connection, only live and neutral. Since the router's metal control box is not double-isolated it must only be used with an earth connection, if a fault develops electrocution is a possibility. I threw away the travel adaptor and included mains cable and bought locally a one-piece IEC C13 power lead with a fused UK plug and that solved part of the problem.After connecting the new lead I measured the earth resistance between the UK plug earth-pin and the chassis of the controller only to find there was still no earth connection. Opening the controller box I found that the internal earth lead connected to the IEC C14 socket ran to a ring terminal bolted to the floor of controller chassis but the assembler had not cleaned away the paint from the metal surfaces around the bolt-hole, neither had a shake-proof or serrated washer been used, also the other side of the bolt was being used to secure one of the (non-conductive) rubber feet to the controller. The result was no earth connection to controller chassis. This is a fairly important thing to get right and could result in serious injury to the operator in the case of an electrical fault developing. I remedied this by drilling a new hole in the controller chassis, cleaning away the paint from the inside and outside of the chassis, fitting serrated washers and a new nut and bolt specifically for the earth connection. Once done then a good earth was established and was tested with an earth bonding tester at better than 0.1 [email protected] final safety problem is down to the length of the cable loom provided to connect between the router bed and the controller box. In the posted images the controller box is shown sitting alongside the front of the router on the right hand side. As delivered the cable loom on the 3040T is too short for that and the control box can only be placed at the rear of the router on the right side or the front of the router on the left side, neither options are ideal. With the control box placed on the right side at the rear and in the case of a problem while machining, i.e. broken cutter bit, broken work piece etc, you have to lean over the router to reach the emergency stop switch, not a sensible idea, or, the control box can be placed on the left side at the front of the router where the emergency stop switch is easy to reach but the cable loom is quite stretched in this position and the control box will sit right next to the router bed. In this location while machining, dust, shavings or swarf is sucked into the router controller box via the unfiltered cooling fan (more on that fan later). The cable loom really needs to be around 600mm longer to allow you to place the router controller on either side of the front of the bed but with a little more distance between the two to get over the problem of debris being drawn inside the router control box.Because of the lack of filters used in the construction of the control box care is required when machining conductive materials as placing the control box close to the router bed while machining can result in debris being drawn inside the control box by the cooling fan, the circuit boards inside the controller box may become short circuited.To be able to easily reach the emergency stop switch without leaning over the router and avoid debris being drawn into the control box you have to operate the 3040T router sideways on, with the Y axis running left to right instead of toward and away from you and this means access to the work is a little more difficult for swarf clearing and keeping an eye on the progress of the cutter. I will probably make up a longer cable loom at some stage, in the mean time I am just using it side-on.Once these issue were addressed the router was put into operation and the first problem became apparent with the Z axis, I found in the router assembly kit that two of the three stepper motors were supplied with flexible drive couplers, and one stepper had a solid coupler. An initial check for end float in the X and Y spindles showed less than .04 mm and I fitted the flexible couplers to these stepper motors. Initially the Z spindle seemed to have no end float at all and felt quite stiff so I fitted the solid coupler to that stepper and started up the machine. For my first pieces the Z cuts were all over the place and I found the Z spindle kept jamming. Removing the Z spindle, cleaning the bearing spigots, re-greasing and reassembling I then found that the actual end float in the Z spindle was 3mm and all the longitudinal forces in the Z spindle were being taken by the stepper motor bearings via the non-flexible coupler. To fix this I sourced some shim washers for the Z spindle and a replacement flexible coupler for the stepper motor. Once sufficient shims were installed and end float down to 0.03mm plus a flexible motor coupler fitted the Z cuts were spot on and no more jamming.In use the machine is incredibly noisy, even with the router cutter spindle turned off!The controller box is fitted with a small but quite ferocious fan, rigidly mounted to the controller casing and the whole thing vibrates and whines, it was impossible to have a conversation within a few metres of the router and to fix this I had to source some rubber washers for the fan mounting screws and also some rubber gasket to fit between the controller casing top and bottom sections. Once done the noise level fell quite significantly but even so this is not something you want from a table top router that may be used in a domestic environment for arts and crafts.The router I received was supplied with a USB to Parallel compatible motion controller interface and demo version motion controller software from PlanetCNC. The demo software is limited to just a few lines of code and you can't create very much with this so you need to buy the full licence, this is not made clear in the sales description that accompanies this item on Amazon. The supplied USB - Parallel motion controller works with Windows 7 64 bit pro but it doesn't seem to use an onboard memory cache. This is a potential problem as the router controller itself is not intelligent and has no program data storage, it relies on the USB - Parallel motion controller to send it drive commands exactly on time but USB protocol does not support this, USB protocol works by sending packets of control code to the motion controller interface and from there to the router. If the laptop/PC is busy or the USB bus is busy then the router won't move smoothly, as it has to keep waiting for the next packet of code to arrive over the USB motion controller.I decided to buy a dedicated USB to Parallel motion controller that includes a program memory cache. I am using the PoKeys57CNCd25 controller from PoLabs and decided at the same time not to invest in a full licence from PlanetCNC but went with Mach4 Hobby from Newfangled Solutions as I have a lathe and want to add CNC to that at some stage. I felt Mach 4 offered better control possibilities than PlanetCNC.I already had TurboCAD for design but still needed to buy the software to create the GCode files and chose Meshcam from GRZ software.Although the base price of the router is relatively inexpensive (in comparison to professional desktop routers it is less than a third of the cost of many) by the time you have found CAD software to create your designs, GCode software to create the machine code and motion controller software to control the router you could easily find you have spend double the initial cost.The final couple of notes regard the router controller.The router controller circuit board has the ability to receive and pass homing switch signals to the motion controller software, there is a header socket on the circuit board specifically for this purpose. Unfortunately they do not supply a plug that fits the socket. I found a supplier in China that supplied the circuit board header plug but with a minimum order of 500 pieces which is a nonsense, if you want to fit homing switches to the router you will need to remove the circuit board and change the PCB header socket (or solder wires direct to the circuit board), mount an additional socket on the rear wall the controller chassis, use a matching plug and run the homing switch cables to the router and finally supply and fit suitable homing switches. The router controller does however include a tool calibration device socket which is already connected to the circuit board so if you want to use automatic tool sensing that is prepared for.In summary.For the price it is a capable device and a good introduction to CNC machining.As delivered it is potentially unsafe electrically and should be subject to an earth bonding test before it is used, any competent domestic electrician can do this for you if you can not do this yourself or do not have access to a suitable earth bonding tester.If supplied, the European plugged IEC C13 lead should be thrown away and any "travel" adaptor that has been supplied should also be ditched, a UK plugged and fused IEC C13 lead that passes the earth connection is required for safe use of this router.Because it is so heavy it may be damaged by poor handling during transit and you need to inspect it carefully before signing the delivery agents handover note, or mark it un-inspected if the driver will not wait (usual state).You will need to factor in the price of the full software licence for PlanetCNC to control the router and you may need a better motion controller if machining complicated pieces that require many commands over USB in real time, you will also need some kind of CAD program to create your designs and another piece of software to create the GCode files to send to the router motion controller.You may need ear defenders, even with the cutter motor not running, or add rubber washers to the controller box fan mounting and rubber gaskets between the controller case upper and lower sections so that the noise level is reduced to an acceptable level while not actually machining.Be aware that you need to orientate the router so that the emergency stop switch can be operated without leaning over the router as the supplied cable loom is too short to allow the controller box to sit alongside the router when it is in the more usual X axis across your body and Y axis toward and away from you.Hope this review may be of some use.

The 3020T arrived in 5 days over the Bank Holiday. The machine only needs the stepper motors fitting before setting up with the computer. It is much more solid a machine than I thought it would be. However - there is need for the included supply of an instant lesson in written Chinese as the the supplied setup manual has all its computer screen images in Chinese! Probably the best value in a small cnc mill.

Great Machine recommend been using it for a couple of months now and fully enjoying creating and making stuff. few teething problems at the start but support was ok.

Router is good quality but there are issues with customer support. Better get it from someone elese.

It works ok, but I had to wait for a couple of months for delivery.

Machine finally arrived just after Christmas. Did contact seller to find out what was going on as was concerned, however it was a Christmas order. Seller was helpful in giving me tracking info. Machine is well made and so far appears to be functioning however it's important that you have an older PC to operate this machine that has an on board parallel port. More recent PCs can be used but you will probably be fitting a add on parallel port card, and this is where it's important that you choose a card that outputs 5v (not all do). The current one in my PC doesn't work so have ordered a startech one which reportedly does. The controller of this machine comes with a USB port also and some software and USB cable but I've went down the route of Mach software initially to see how that goes. All in all the machine is well built and am looking forward to getting it operational. Just have to be patient with these things.

Very good machine

I've owned this CNC machine for a few months now. I have made many parts directly in wood, plastic, machinable wax, etc. Cutting PCBs also works great.