CNC

Thanks boss , was thinking of buying China and making some modifications on it software not so much a problem.

I’ve given that a thought been looking around for about  18 months don’t seem to see anything going for a good price here , 12000£ for a machine that’s ten years old is not cheap, will spend 8500 including import tax for a new one from China some mates have one and it’s been running for 5 years now, no big break down so far.

Imo you really want to make sure the software that the CNC runs on is good, and I recommend it be Mach3 or 4. It’s called a post processor or motion control software, and it turns the GCode that is generated by your CAM software into movement. So the Motion Controller of the CNC needs to be compatible with said software. 

My experience with a chinese CNC is really good. You just need to find the supplier that has good support etc., and make a detailed Alibaba TradeAssurance -contract when purchasing. My machine was from AccTek.

With the help of a local expert I’ve built a small machine (800x1300mm)

Budget was tight so we constructed the whole thing from Phenolic Birch Ply with selected Chinese electronics, managed to do it for about €2700. 

Also, the Vectric Vcarve software is a revelation!

Looks like a nice build there! My concern would be shofting of the frame with age and moisture but it's phenolic and presumably edge sealed + hopefully a not too damp workshop so sometimes you just have to see how it goes. Absolute worst case you re-build or skim the bed.

Software wise I have no complaints with UC_CNC and native driver support for their own USB controller peripherals is significant imo, Mach3 is ok but it's quite old school and there has been a lot of issues with the V4 software. Maybe they have made headway on resolving them, not been following the development for a few years now. USB driver support is probably inferior compared to UCCNC but that's just my feeling. 

Software wise some sort of vectric product is an absolute must imo, I'd budget for Vcarve Pro with the view to going higher one day. They will allow you to increment licensing from one product to another as your business needs grow. For simple 2D diagrams you can get away with free produsts like inkscape to generate vectors but the beauty of Vectric s/w is that it will generate the vectors and then the post processed g-code directly from them which you take straight to the mill. That plus the tooling library it stores means you can be cutting a design in literally minutes after thinking of it.