Hey David,
$3,000 is of course a very limited budget. In fact, in the price range, I currently know nothing technically satisfying that would come into question. In my case, I didn’t start planning to buy a CNC until my available budget was a bit higher, simply because I didn’t want to spend my precious money on something I’m not convinced of, but above all I didn’t want to invest in something I can’t rely on for a professional application. That’s not the case with the Onefinity yet either (I first wanted to buy the Laguna iQ which is not satisfactory either), but with the Onefinity I know what I need to change and retrofit to it. I hadn’t seen this easily in any other machine in its (hobbyist) class. The Onefinity is a machine with some reliable aspects in parts and design to raise it to a level of professional usability and it is easy to alter and retrofit things. Also it lacks a machine base and a (serious) cable management, which is something I wanted to do on my own anyway. And then when the Onefinity Journeyman with 120 cm workarea width came out, the choice was even clearer.
But I know the situation that you first have to do with something not satisfactory, because the budget is limited, and only when you have earned a little and saved, you can buy something better. Often it can only go like this. So for the time being I could only afford the Mechatron HFS-8022-24-ER20 and will do with manual tool change for a while, and will only be able to buy the ATC-8022-30-HSK25 later, when I have some money coming in.
Just as someone could come up with the idea of first having to use a machine where the workpieces can only be processed in tiled form and a large machine only becomes affordable once a little production has taken place and more money has been earned with it.
It’s often a compromise, but I just wanted to point out that sometimes something can look like a compromise but end up being trouble. I assume you also plan on using the machine professionally. Are you sure you will have enough reliability in endurance and accuracy with the Ratrig? Nothing is more annoying when you already have paying and waiting customers and then your equipment is failing or not delivering the quality you need.
As for the hand trim router, sorry if I grin, well what can you say how chocolate tastes to someone who has never tasted chocolate. People don’t realize that the trim router is a limiting factor until they’ve used something real. There are reasons why you only find induction motors as milling motors in the industry.
Oh, I did not say that the Makita hand trim router is not a good hand trim router. Maybe it is a better hand trim router than some other hand trim router. What I say is, what has a hand trim router to do in a CNC (until the next time it burns out and the workshop down, as reported repeatedly) since it’s explicitly not made for continuous operation)? That’s all I said. A hand trim router is a cheap substitute for a milling motor for hobbyists, and it is offered by many hobbyist CNC machines manufacturers (you know some I mean) to allow for a low entry price which is important when addressing to hobbyists. And it’s clear that the entities you listed say that the hand trim router is great - but I wouldn’t be sure what qualifies that list of entities to be asked for advice. If you need a hand trim router, maybe the Makita is fine. I own a Makita power tool too by the way.
You have already placed an order for the RatRig? If so, then your report will certainly be welcome by many here.