Should I buy onefinity? If it’s worth it? Guide for those who joined the forum but haven’t ordered the machine yet. How to buy cnc machine

Don’t listen to anybody. Everybody is biased. You are a grown man and capable of making your own decisions after you get permission from the wife. In writing. Do it properly. Follow the steps below exactly.

1)Buy shapeoko.
2)Use it.
3) struggle.
4) watch I Broke Up With My Shapeoko CNC - YouTube
5) order onefinity.
6) drink beer
7) kick yourself in the butt … twice…. While drinking beer. In each cheek.
8 ) put your shapeoko up for sale
9) take a financial hit
10) switch to cheap terrible piss-wasser brand beer to further punish yourself.
11) practically give away shapeoko.
12) wait an eternity to get onefinity while blaming covid and China.
13) get onefinity.
14) post the complimentary picture of you taking the day off waiting for the machine. Don’t forget to mention your order number.
15) post the complimentary picture of the table you made for it
16) put it together in 15 minutes from assembly and of your first terrible Cut because you don’t know what you’re doing but be amazed at what you were able to do in only 15 minutes while being a complete noob and a degenerate.
17) start learning the software that you should have been learning this whole time while you were waiting.
18) punish yourself by switching to whiskey while learning the software.
19) use whiskey to make good decisions like ordering accessories for the machine.
20) pay dearly to the wife by buying her new furniture she’s been asking for. And that kitchen remodel. Promise here you can make cabinet doors! This is important.
21) negotiate with her by offering to do the dishes for a week.
22) loose negotiation and settle for doing dishes for a month.
23) do dishes for 3 months.
24) be content you made a great decision.

Remember… you are unique, like everyone else.

You are a grown man so don’t let anyone make your decisions. Follow the guide above. Exactly. You’ll be fine.

This is the way. I have spoken.

P.s. this guide is for most men who are clueless. If you have clue, it is likely that you are a unicorn or woman. In which case ignore the husband and just do what you do anyway. You get whatever you want.

P.p.s. @OnefinityCNC i think this guide would’ve helped in the FAQ section.

12 Likes

Totally epic Razi. Substitute wine for whiskey and you nailed it for me :wink:

-Tom

1 Like

Sometimes I wonder about people. My wife bought mine for me. And I generally don’t have a clue.:grinning:

i think we two got the good ones. when i started looking for a CNC machine (now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type) I thought to get a wood worker. I told my wife there are bigger versions but that i was doing smaller projects and I would be fine. she said, " get the bigger one you know you will want it and you will need it for something or other." Now that is a fine woman. I am building the obligatory table as you read this.I will post many pictures wheni am done I still as yet have not ordered my machine. I will. I will…I think i came up with a design that will allow me to conert to vertical dove tail milling in about …well less than a minute.

3 Likes

just thinking: Yep everybody’s normal till you get to know them.

1 Like

Hey Hardtail, I don’t know if you’ve seen it but check out @kclark1379 for an enclosure with vertical workholding. I loved it so much I pretty much just copied it for my own project. I also plan to post pictures of mine when it’s done ( sooooo close!!) but first my tablet shattered and then my Google Pixel developed an alarming curve so I’ve lost all my "before " and “during” pictures I took with them. Ah well, brevity is probably better anyway. Still haven’t mastered that Twitter - like short attention span terseness that social media seems to require.:smirk:

1 Like

BTW, @onefinitycnc1 , I totally agree with @Raziullah007 that this should be in the FAQ section or at least in the “before you buy”. Even though it is obviously not applicable to myself or Robert, I think it would bring a bit of levity to what can be a rather intimidating purchase ( and a hard sell to your significant other). Oh,and @Cyberreefguru ?, I have 3 bottles of wine on my shelf…and 150 bottles of whisky. I think you can see where I’m going with this.:face_with_monocle::tumbler_glass:

And if you want to go really hard-core buy an X-Carve and add the following steps (condensed from OP, your results may vary):

1a) assemble it (strong mechanical aptitude, engineering degree, or something in between req’d.)
2a) realize it needs upgrades after using it for a minute
2b) upgrade Z axis
2c) upgrade from 6mm to 9mm belts
2d) upgrade again from belts to linear rails & leadscrew drives
3) use it and be happy with the machine you’ve transformed into a very solid & accurate machine
3a) constantly readjust leadscrew retaining collars to maintain backlash on 8mm acme leadscrews
4) see pic of Onefinity a friend emails you, immediately sell X-Carve & order Onefinity.
4a) X-Carve sells for original purchase price, less all the upgrades.
5) receive and assemble the Onefinity & realize you’ve made a good choice.
6) run Onefinity & realize you’ve made a good choice.
7) look for things to upgrade on it, and find nothing on the machine itself. Return to step 6.

3 Likes

The more I read about what others have gone through with their first machines before moving on to 1F , the happier I am that I made it my first machine. I just really don’t have the patience to make all these mods just to make a machine do what I got it for in the first place.

I never personally owned a different brand “desktop” style CNC but there was one of the usual suspects with belts at a local maker space I once belonged to and it required constant adjustment. Before you ran a job you had to calibrate it and make sure all the v-wheels were adjusted and in one case I found the bearing fell out of one, not sure how the last person to use made out with it. They now have a 5x10 that uses rack and pinion and it’s not much better IMO. I knew when I went shopping for my own CNC I wanted to avoid both of these drive systems and the Onefinity fit the bill. Aside from that the rigidity of the rails is far superior to other desktop style CNC I have used. I’ve had mine over a year with 1500+ hours on it and never had to calibrate it, it’s been spot on since I took it out of the box.

The unique design of the Onefinity recently allowed me to take on a project which other systems would not have been able to. I was hired to inlay a company logo into a conference room table that was built in 6’x8’ sections making it impractical to move or fit inside many other CNC. I was able to place the Onefinity on top of it using a squaring jig and due to not having an integrated table as many desktop CNC do I was able to complete the carve right in place. It is a very versatile machine.

5 Likes

Wow,@WaywardWoodworker . That sounds like it was an awesome project. Do you have any pictures of the process and the end result?

1 Like

I don’t have pictures, since it was a company logo in their conference room I didn’t feel it was appropriate to take any or to share them.

1 Like

Hey Derek, hey all,

we ended up choosing the Onefinity Journeyman, but one machine that this would also apply to is the cnc-step High-Z. With a size of up to 82.7″ × 41.3″ (6.9′ × 3.4′) and its open, extruded aluminium frame, I think this job would have been possible with it too.
cnc_router_high_z_s_1000t-1 _1000ms

I think that there are a number of machines out there that use this simple concept of an open extrusion aluminium frame. However, aside from being open, it is not comparable to the Onefinity as you either built a base or table for it or use the QCW frame which is also different. The question is what about the stiffness of the frame, but I think both types of frames need to be adjusted in their final working position.

By the way, it was very hard not to buy this machine as it also has ball screws and with its plain bearings (instead of linear ball bearings) on steel bars it even mills steel, and with its power chain cable management (which of course costs) it is very convincing. It also has a 43 mm Euro mount (which is still missing on the Onefinity CNC) that allows for a variety of single-phase (non-VFD) milling motors such as AMB (former Kress), Suhner, Mafell, etc., but spindle mounts e.g. for Mechatron are also available (this machine was already discussed the other day here and here).

Understandable. But I would have liked to see it too :slight_smile:

How thick/stiff was your squaring jig for the Onefinity and what was it made of?

I do!

:wine_glass: vs :tumbler_glass: vs :robot: Army

Everyone has their vices :wink:

1 Like

hello off i can’t seem to find @kclark1379 anywhere

Sorry HardtailSr, I’m still getting used to navigating around here myself. Try going to the forum, down to “Accessories,”,down again to " community made accessories " and in there you’ll see “1F cabinet with vertical holding”. Click on that and you’re in. Gaze in awe at the genius of the structure.:face_holding_back_tears:

Hey Rober @HardtailSr, hey Charles @Off-kilter,

vertical clamping (and also software for making wood joints then) is a popular topic in this forum. You can even try it this way to find these topics :slight_smile:

1 Like

best post in this whole forum omg im rolling in laughter thanks i needed a good laugh

I may have had that exact discussion - except for its shutters.

1 Like

I only buy new tools if I can justify it on a project. The first project generally pays for the tool and anything else I use it for is “profit” :smiley:

I just spen $1800 on an HVLP system because I need to repaint some cabinets for my wife and the cabinetmaker wanted 2500 and taking them out while he did it leaving us without a bathroom for a week. Not gonna happen so into the world of 5 stage turbine units I go :laughing: