Been turning this over for a while and could use an outside view.
CNC has eaten basically all my spare time for the last few years. I always wanted my own shop but never found a “starter” machine that made sense - every desktop unit I looked at felt like a woodworking machine that dreams about cutting aluminum. I gave up on the idea more than once and kept circling back to it.
Right now I’m looking at the ToolDance X1: optional 4th/5th axis, a 400 x 260 x 180 work envelope, and a flood coolant option. Screenshots from the spec page are attached - the published roughing numbers claim 15 cm3/min in 6061 dry and roughly 40 cm3/min with flood, so feel free to tell me how much salt to take with those.
I already know the whole chain from CAD through CAM to post processing, so the software side isn’t the scary part. I have a few people in my circle who need custom parts in runs of 3-10, plus an FDM printer I’d use for prototype work as an add-on service. The plan would be small 1-20 piece batch jobs and walk-in work, operating out of my parents’ company so overhead stays close to zero.
The big investment is tooling, which I can source cheap through my job - they toss endmills and drills over a tiny bit of wear, and I’m not chasing 0.00x territory anyway.
Does this sound like a sane way in, or am I romanticizing the hard parts?
