I keep watching these desktop 5-axis machines appear on Kickstarter and I will admit the idea has me. Two more conventional machines already live in my workshop, a Makera Carvera Air and a Z1, so a real simultaneous 5-axis for somewhere in the $5,000 to $6,000 range is a tempting number.
The ones I have been following:
- Xhorse3D Xmachine WM-100
- IFMAKER M5
- InfiMaker K1
- ToolDance X1, with the optional 5-axis module
- Rownd 5X
- TOPFAB TF500, though that campaign was cancelled
A couple of odd notes before the main point. The IFMAKER M5 looks like somebody opened a photo of the Xhorse in Photoshop and started dragging the parts around. Maybe that is just me, but I had to look twice.
And IFMAKER and InfiMaker turn out to be two entirely separate companies. IFMAKER even wrote a line into its campaign FAQ saying the two are not affiliated.
Now the bit that actually matters.
Xhorse never sat right with me from the beginning. There were months of VIP discounts and early reservations being pushed well before the campaign finally went live.
Then I dug into the company and found that Xhorse3D sits under a much larger outfit, also called Xhorse, which has been trading since 2010, and Xhorse3D says it has shipped over 1,000 units of its earlier XM-100 machine in China. That counts for something next to a startup with a nice render and no history.
Then I read their export notice. Xhorse3D pushed its launch back over export-control problems. In an announcement dated August 29 they said they had put in trial export licence applications, one set for business buyers and one for private individuals. The business applications went through. The individual ones were refused. So Xhorse decided not to accept backing from individuals at all until it works out a legal route to actually deliver the machines.
I honestly respect that. They could have banked everyone’s money and worried about the problem afterwards. At least they came out and said it.
Which left me wondering about everybody else.
Over in the IFMAKER campaign comments they have owned up to the same requirement, that their machine needs export approval too. Their plan, as far as I can make out, is to wait until the campaign is over and they have all the backer details before they even begin the formal licence applications. Refunds are on the table if export or shipping problems mean they cannot deliver, which sounds good.
Having been through crowdfunding before, though, I would not bet the farm on a promised refund.
What actually separates IFMAKER’s position from Xhorse’s? Have InfiMaker or ToolDance already cracked this? Do their machines fall under a different classification, or is it a case of dealing with it when it comes up?
Then there is Rownd. They are in Turkey, so they are not sitting under the same export regime as the Chinese builders. Their 5X is the one I find most interesting on paper, mainly because of the larger advertised work area.
But Rownd has a crowdfunding record worth reading too. In 2023 they crowdfunded a desktop CNC lathe. The original shipping estimate was February 2024, and in practice a good number of backers had machines by June or July of 2024. Now it is 2026 and customers are only just posting unboxings and clips of the thing running. For plenty of backers that is close to two years past the original date. To their credit, the machines do appear to be real and working. I would like to hear from anyone who owns one: would you do it again, how is the quality, the software and the support, and did every original backer end up with a machine? Knowing that, I am in no rush to back their next launch, however good the 5X looks in the specs.
And here is why I am probably more cynical than most. Over the years I have backed something like 20 crowdfunding campaigns. New ideas are worth backing, particularly ones that put proper manufacturing capability within reach of a hobby shop. That said, I have been burned. I am down close to $3,000 across two campaigns, the Cyberone Desk on Kickstarter and a chessboard on Indiegogo. Three grand, gone.
I have donated to the crowdfunding industry more than I ever intended. I would rather my next one came with a machine attached. Which is the worry with this sudden wave of budget 5-axis machines. A few of these outfits have no real shipping record at all, others have already slipped badly, and now there are questions over whether some of them can legally be exported to individual hobbyists in the first place. What happens if a few hundred people back one, the campaign closes, the money is collected, and only then does the builder discover it cannot get the approvals it needs?
Perhaps the licensing really is different from one machine to the next and there is nothing shady going on. Export rules are not my field. I am just a hobbyist who likes building things and has already paid for a couple of expensive lessons about believing what a campaign page says.
I am also curious about the machines themselves. Which one looks most promising to you, and has anybody here actually had hands on with any of these companies or their earlier products? The things I care about are precision, surface finish, rigidity, how they cut aluminum and brass, how much of the advertised 5-axis envelope is really usable, and whether the CAM side holds up. The AI features and the accuracy figures sound impressive, but I would take independent testing over another glossy promo video any day. Makera did a superb job on that front during their campaign.
Has anyone managed to get a straight answer out of InfiMaker, IFMAKER, ToolDance or Rownd about shipping these to individual buyers in the US?
I am not accusing anyone of anything and I hope they all do well. More competition in affordable 5-axis work is good for all of us. I do think Xhorse deserves credit for naming a problem the others have not explained as clearly.
So what do you all think? Which of them would you trust with your money, and is anyone else worried about the export side?
