So after my year long journey with the MPCNC and Lowrider, I decided to step up my game to the next level and purchase this OMIO 6040 Style CNC Router.
It was this unit, only available on their site: https://www.omiocnc.com/products/x6-2200l-usb.html
Most of us have heard about the infamous 6040 from China. They can be found for $1-2k and are by far the most popular cnc router design I have seen for hobbyists. They are known for being a hit or miss, with some people having great success and others barely getting the thing to work and sometimes scrapping it.
Just to be clear, the 6040 I bought is not your typical 6040 you get from ebay, aliexpress, etc. Think of the OMIO as the more deluxe edition with a few significant upgrades that improve performance at a slight cost. The best upgrade is the fact all 3 axis ride on supported hiwin style linear rails, vs the curtain rod style ones you normally see on 3d printers. Because all of the rails are fastened to the frame, there is a lot less flex in the entire system. It is by far the biggest upgrade you can do to a 6040 since that was its structures weak point.
It also has an er20 2.2kw spindle which is HUGE by the way, the thing weighs like 13lbs. It is watercooled so you have to run a pump to cool it off. On light cuts however, I found the cooling to be unnecessary.
The setup went good except for one issue I was having with MACH3. It couldn’t detect the USB drivers due to the way I was copying the files in windows 7, so I had to do it on my windows 10 machine then port the files over to the crummy laptop. Shipping took 7 days in total, assembly was fast.
I still have a lot to do to get this thing running the way I want it to. For one, I have a spoilboard I still need to put on. I am using the classic MPCNC trick which taught me the importance of bringing the cutting load as close to the gantry as possible, so I created a huge and super heavy 3" thick mdf block to move the piece way up to the top.
Here is a video of a first test cut with old MPCNC settings: https://youtu.be/Gtmfg12XrNw
As you can hear…zero chatter whatsoever. You can tell the machine just wants more. The issue I am running into now is that the 1/8" endmills can’t take much more load without getting serious chip welding. I have ordered some 4mm bits to speed things up and some mist coolant to prevent any chip welding. This things got some serious potential.
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Here is my conclusion about the performance: Overall, the OMIO is more rigid, faster, more accurate. That shouldn’t be a surprise though, as my model costed me $2500 after shipping overseas compared to a $500 MPCNC. Can it remove material 5x faster? That I am unsure about but I can tell you right now, it might! Just flexing the gantry with your hands, there is zero play or movement. Forget about trying to make it skip steps, the nema 23’s and ballscrews won’t let you. The only way I can seriously push this thing is with a bigger and better endmill because so far that’s the biggest limitation in cutting performance. The MPCNC is good at doing a lot of different things like 3d printing, laser cutting, milling, drawing, etc. but I was looking for a more specialized solution and I found it.
Now of course the MPCNC still has a lot of pros over a 6040 style. It is cheaper to repair, scalable, cheaper, more versatile, and has the best customer service Iv’e ever experienced. It is an excellent choice for beginners who are new to the CNC world.