Im planning on making the plunge and placing an order for the onefinity woodworker in the next couple of days. Since this is such a new machine, there is little information out there about this machine and how it would compare to the Shaepoko or Millright Mega V., or the cnc4newbie machine.
Im hopping to have you guys fill me in on your thoughts, anyone with experience with other machines can add on how this compare?
Are you having any concerns after receiving your machine?
I donāt have any of these to compare against, but if itās any help your list is the same list I first narrowed down to, then to Onefinity or Mega V, and finally picked Onefinity.
Hi Boris - welcome to the forums. I have not received my 1F yet so I canāt give a direct comparison. Ben (@MyersWoodshop) can probably offer a direct comparison, or the folks from Two Moose (I donāt think they are on the forum).
I chose the 1F to replace my X-Carve to get rid of the belts and provide better rigidity. Both Inventables and Carbide have upped their game since the release of the 1F. But they have also upped their price significantly. Certainly way outside entry level, and the X-Carve is now on par (in terms of cost) with Avid and other pro-sumer CNC machines. I believe the new Shapeoko is on par with Openbuilds machines in terms of price. I canāt speak to the capabilities of any of them though.
Hope thatās some help, if not answering your direct question.
-Tom
Gentleman thank you for your feedback.
Im on the same page as the both of you! I took the plunge! now ill see you on the other side! (IN JANUARY 
)
From what Iāve seen and read, I think you made a good decision! Iām getting mine in December 
I canāt yet answer that question because Iām also in the December boat. What I can offer though, is my thoughts from a machine design perspective. My previous machine was a highly modified x-carve with 12mm linear rails & 8mm ACME drive screws. The machine was phenomenal as far as precision. But my machine, the Shapeoko, the CNC4noob and even the pro versions coming out are all using sq. linear rails mounted to aluminum extrusions. While this is all well and good, every screw hole in a sq. linear rail is an opportunity for bearing contamination. Even if they use hole plugs, itās not as good of a seal as you can get with a simple round rail & bearing. Also, unless these machines were put together using precision fixturing or at least tweaked in with measurements, itās doubtful the rails are truly as straight & parallel as the OF rails are.
Now, letās talk about machine squareness & precision. On an x-carve (or any of the other previously mentioned machines), the ārestingā squareness of the gantry to the Y rails is dependent on how well & square they cut the ends of the 40mm gantry extrusion. Also how square the base is assembled, how parallel & perpendicular the Y rails are assembled to the base. Itās presumed by most that bolting together a machine with 5mm screws thru 5.5mm holes and 6mm extrusion slots will yield a square & precision machine. No offense intended to anyone (Iāve spent 40+ years as a machinist & tool designer), but the average user has absolutely no clue as to how many opportunities for geometric imperfection exist in the assembly of any of these machines. Yet, itās probably close enough for the vast majority.
Simply put, less parts & assembly points equate to a better design. The beauty of the OF design removes the vast majority of these potential assembly imperfections, assuming their machined components are accurate.
2020 should be the last year belts and v wheels are used on a cnc.
but also Iām high tech and the Onefinity controller is lightyears ahead off all the others.
Shapeoko is older, millright mega v is basically a shapeoko with a bit bigger cutting area and rack and pinion instead of belts. Both take over 5 hours at best to put together. And Millrights owner isā¦not niceā¦check out reddit hobby cnc and youāll find out how he treats his customers.
Onefinity is what I have now. And thereās a reason. All ball screw, no v wheels, smart controller, 15 (Iāve done it in 7 now) minute setup (no install video on shapeoko, TWO over 59 minute videos on millright, one less than like 13 minute video for Onefinity), outstanding customer support. All at the same cost or lower. To me, itās a no brainer.
Also, hereās a good video I found when comparing rack and pinion vs ball screw when I learned of the Onefinity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZzV2_H9GRY and they sell high end machines.
I am a newbie when it comes to CNC. When I say new I mean new. I didnāt even know what a file extension is. After much research I settled into the onefinity. I received mine 5 days ago and had it setup and operating in an hour. The true learning curve started when I tried my first carve or do you call it a cut. Remember, I am new. None the less, I had a very successful design in Vcarve Desktop and cutting within a couple hours although very basic. I have also been trying to attach to my wifi network with no luck still. Not sure what the issue is but will continue working on it. I am not saying there hasnāt been some frustrating moments but the support from Onefinity has been outstanding. So far, I am very pleased.
Thatās encouraging feedback to hear. Iām a complete newbie tooā¦and the crazy thing is, by now you would still be assembling an XCarve and wouldnāt have even had time to start getting frustrated with that machine yet 
Yeah I had an xcarve and it did take quite a long time to assemble. Iām looking forward to not having the belts and v-wheels.
Itās actually counter-intuitive to think that an x-carve is considered a beginner machine (which it is), but it does take some level of experience & expertise to understand the multitude of ways shit can go sideways with v-rollers & belts.
Thanks everyone for your feedback.
The ballscrew is a big advantage in the onefinity.
I am curious / nervous about the rigidity of the railings? The way they are setup, am right in assuming that if those railings are not close to perfectly parallel, it would cause a hell of a lot of internal stresses on the machine?
True Boris, if things are not close to perfectly parallel it will cause stress. But it would require a hell of a lot of misalignment to cause a hell of a lot of stress. Too much would show up in lost steps or binding. But another beauty of this design is that it can absorb a certain amount of Y-rail twist (one Y rail not perfectly planar to the other) and still operate smoothly. This condition would cause a twist in the gantry (X axis), but again, it would have to be pretty severe I would think, to cause issues when operating.
Short of removing the ball screws (and I sure wouldnāt recommend that), itās nearly impossible to gage alignment stresses in the machine. Youād never have a feel for how freely the machine moves in X & Y without the forces required to back-drive the ball screws when moving the machine manually.
Iāve been playing with CNC for a couple years with becoming more serious in the last six months or so. I cannot compare my current machine, Shaepoko, against the OneFinityā¦yet (I get mine in late November). Iām pleased with the Shaepoko and itās worked well, but it is not the same caliber as the OneFinity. Not only my review, but all the great posts Iāve seen simply validate my assessment. In my opinion, OneFinity is hands down the clear winner.
I owned the shapeokoxxl after seeing the video that Myers put up I sold the shapeoko and a couple other things and ordered the onefinity Iāve been running onefinity now about a month did a couple of projects already same projects I did on the shapeoko when I did them on the shapeoko it never got done on the first attempt had to readjust and do things to the machine because theyāre like 15 hour carves but with the onefinity both projects went without any problems I have had a couple of issues with the onefinity but I knew that we would have them being one of the first ones to receive and as soon as you give feedback to the tech team theyāre on it and you have a remedy within a day the firmware has already been updated I figure a couple more times and theyāll have all the clinches tooken care of onefinity hands down
I have a Shapeoko XXL that started itās life as an XL. It has been my introduction to CNC. Donāt get me wrong, the thing works, and the Carbide 3D folks have great customer support, at least in my experience. It hasnāt all been roses either though. I kind of have a love hate relationship with it. Upgraded Z carriage to the Beaver HDZ. Upgraded V-wheels, 4.2w JTech laser. My biggest complaint is the belts. I broke out a digital fish scale, marked a small piece of lumber and use the fish scale to see if the belts are āaboutā the same tension from side to side. There is no set proper tension for any of the belts. I cant hate on the machine to much though. It works, and it has allowed me to make more money out of my little shop. Though having a belt break six hours into an eight hour carve ruining the piece isā¦ lets just say profanity inducing.
Then I saw the 1F machine. No belts. No V-wheels. From the look of it, sturdy as all get out. I saw Ben Myers videos as well. Talked it over with the wife, who asked me why I hadnāt ordered it yet. Yeah, I got lucky. lol.
The idea of being able to get in my shop, do a look over, and simply get to work, instead of having to check over V-wheels, belts, eccentric nuts, seems amazing to me.
Thanks guys, everyoneās feedack is awesome. looking forward to getting mine, i have a few worries in the back of my mind, mainly keeping a frameless machine squared (can be addressed by having tooling plate as a base), and not having any dust (specially if rarely milling metals) make its way to the bearing, and i guess some of the early driver issues, but overall people seam really happy with the machine, and im impatiently waiting until hopefully some time in january for it to ship out!
@Kat Iām new to the cnc world, but my wife did the same thing. āEnough of the sales pitch, if you want it, grow a pair and buy it already!ā Iād say we are lucky.
Keeping the machine square is a simple matter of following the directions in the video. The machine is self-squaring when done as shown. That said, you canāt beat a tooling plate. I made one for my machinist. Hopefully the dimensions are trustworthy, as I wanted to get this built before the machine arrives in December.
I just did a blog post about it:
