I’m just getting my foot in the door on the Avid CNC world. I’ve been watching video’s with them for years, but I’m about make the jump into buying a new one in the next few weeks or months. For the experienced owners out there what is one thing if you could change about your avid you would change? Not looking for an Avid bash sessions, but I want to come into this knowing it’s issues so I can plan for them. The only things I’ve hear from one other is the base isn’t sturdy so it’ best to put items like wood under it like Frank W did and how Corbin make his own base. That’s about the only thing I hear. Anything else?
Hi Nate,
I feel like Avid’s move to Centroid helped a lot with cut quality, and I can’t really complain about it. But I really do like precision, and I wonder if an all ball screw machine would be more precise. Stepcraft is the only hobby CNC company that has a 4x8 that does this, and I hear there are issues with longer beds and ball screws. Other big CNC companies use ball screws in bigger machines. This is just a thought; I’m not sure how much better it would be, if at all.
Servos are awesome; I would have got them if they were offered when I bought my machine. I can’t quite justify the upgrade price, but I may do it at some point.
It would be nice if the gantry was a little more stiffer. I can push on the motor and get like 5 thou of runout. But, like I said, this doesn’t seem to affect quality.
Avid is coming out with an ATC rack on a pneumatic system - that’s something I would really like to have!
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I just finished a Pro4896 build this week, doing software set up now… no regrets, but the build wasn’t exactly pain free (literally too, don’t punch the rack from underneath while pulling cables under the base to put on the cable holding bracket, yeeeouch!)
Buy tools. The instructions list some as required and some as option - there’s no optional, buy them all and then some.
You’ll want to invest in a good set of metric Allen/Hex drivers, ball end is 100% required for the base and leg build, you will not do it without a good ball end set. Skip the T handle and get a good quality (I used Eklind) 6, 5, 4, and 3mm hex ball screw drivers and a cheaper set (Icon from HF) L shaped drivers, and a set of 4" long metric impact drivers. All were used often. The Eklind screw drivers are high quality and great for all the M8 bolts in the frame where you really need that 15º angle and the L’s are great to get that last bit of torque on them. Cheaper ball end sets are not machined well and may not offer as much tilt angle and/or bind up, so keep that in mind.
A digital caliper is vital. As is a metric tape measure.
Buy mounting hardware for the E-stop, it doesn’t come with mounting hardware. The mounting holes will not fit M5 screws, so M3 or M4. You can get roll-in or hammer nuts cheap from Amazon or McMaster. Avid suggested and plenty of builds, to make a little cradle… I just mounted mine to a leg low enough to not get hit by the Y motor’s gears.
Think about Cable management early. Buy some basic cable tags and/or colored vinyl electrical tape (you’ll want at least red, blue, green, orange, and purple). Velcro cable ties came in handy as well. You’ll also want extra cable ties / zip ties, as well as cable tie mounts. You can get twist in cable tie mounts for the 8020 (40mm) profiles.
If you have a 3d printer you can print a lot of cable management stuff and find a lot of 40mm / 8020 profile accessories to print.
McMaster-Carr you’ll want this for the cable track trays, adds a nice touch. 25’ length is plenty. Probably get away with 2x 10’
The documentation / instructions could be better. They could use more images, better images with better orientation / relative positions. 100% use the online version, as a FEW images you can alternate between a close up and zoomed out machine view - EVERY step needs that. It really feels like the assembly instructions have gone through so many revisions that it’s all starting to lose some continuity, and sections seemed to be missing based on my machine options (e.g. there’s zero documentation included for the touch plate, yet at some point it just starts talking about using it like it was previously covered).
There’s a lot of mistakes in the illustration vs written instructions, but the written instructions do seem to be the correct one so if in doubt, follow the written directions and ignore the image. I had to remove and replace so many screws because I followed an illustration rather than text.
Basically, just read the entire assembly manual (or at least section by section) before you start. Pay very close attention to relative positions of things… even when properly described it gets confusing with so many screws, nuts, etc.
Would be great if they had an in-house build guide online, a full step by step with photos and videos following their own build instructions. Reliance on the variability of community build logs is tough when you’re looking for something specific and have to browse 100+ community videos of various quality. (not to knock the creators making those videos!)
As for the base… it’s not bad, but it’s not HEAVY. There’s ample room to build a shelf in there and add some pavers to it for weight. Should help a lot.
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Thanks Corbin. I was kind of looking at other companies as well even pwn cnc is going to be adding a new cnc, but they haven’t designed their 4x8 yet and I think they will have trouble. So I’m giong to stick with Avid as I’m sure it’s touch enough for me. The only other company I thought about was ShopSabre as I see used ones in my area on auctions for 10-20k from time to time, but I don’t have the resources to pick it up and get it into my third car garage. The avid is just perfect in that regards as I can put it in my basement or garage. NO PROBLEM. Like you said in your video on why you picked avid. Thank you for giving some info on this subject!
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Thanks GreySoul for all the build info. I was planning on making sure to buy some new tools for the build. I have most everything, but I want to double check. Maybe I’ll make a bunch of youtube videos documenting the build with pictures so folks can use. Who am I kidding…I’ve never done a youtube video, but I might just try. It would be a good as Eric and his video’s…the dude creates a video and I’m like…I have to have that…I’m going to back to this list of things over and over again to help me and make notices and buy that stuff you mentioned. Some of it I already have in my cart so that’s good.
Not sure if they are still configured the same, but the black plastic rail dust covers didn’t really cut it for me. Too much temperature changes in my shop day to night. So they would expand and contract and end up warped like a sine wave pattern.
So I got some 1/4" aluminum stock from McMaster-carr and cnc’d them to the right profile ( including countersunk holes) to replace the plastic ones. 6’ pieces, and they cam up about 6" short, so I also 3D printed a small section for the end.
Thanks for that info Kosh! I have seen one or two for sale myself where that piece is warp so that explains it. I live in Minnesota and my shop isn’t temp controlled so I might be running into trouble down the line:)
In my case, I built my cnc mirror-image from the instructions, so that the wiring would be up against the wall instead of on the side I’d be working off. My change would be: modifying the design and/or parts so that this was a supported configuration, instead of the hack I had to do to make everything work. Mostly this would involve the X motor mount plate, which didn’t have cable channel mounts on the other end.
So the wires on the side always have to go on the right side right?
Well, the documentation has you putting the wires (and thus boxes) on the right (X+) so if you’re going by the docs, yes, wires and control boxes go on the right side.
Mine are on the left (X-). My cnc is in the corner of my basement, with X- against a wall and Y+ is near a wall (walking distance) but I put the tool rack at Y+. The X+ long edge is next to the open area with the door to the outside. The Y- short edge has the rotary and future drop table, as well as a work table with the computer.
I have my machine setup mirrored like yours as well. What cable channel plates are you talking about? Mirroring should be no problem… Maybe I’m missing something?
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Thanks for sharing!!
Not a big deal, but…
The red plate that the cable chain bolts to, only has mounting holes on the (from this perspective) right end of the X plate. A second set of mounting holes on the left would have been convenient and allowed for more straightforward routing of all the wires. At the time, I didn’t feel like fabricating a new bracket and holes to mount on the other edge.
Swapping the cable chains like this also means they “open” from the far side, but I made my own opening tool to work around that.
I see what you’re saying, but you don’t need holes on the other side as you discovered.
To get the cable track to open the proper way you just flip it over.
Agreed, and I didn’t complain then, but this is the “if there was one thing you could change?” thread 
IIRC I tried that, but the ends were different and the minor problems that caused were more of an issue than the minor problem of backwards opening was.
Ahh, you can pop the ends off too, maybe that’s what I did… it’s been a bit since I did it! 
You can’t swap them; they’re either “male” or “female” relative to the links of the chain. But yeah, there are many ways to make it work. Maybe you had access to other types of ends that aren’t normally shipped, for example.
But it doesn’t matter to my cnc; it’s working and I’m not changing it unless some other good reason comes up
My one thing I would change on my 5x10 currently with AV70S, Ex + Servo, 5’ Rotary is: one extra foot in the Y Axis.
I could really use a full another foot for the ideal layout (and my shop couldn’t handle much more of an extension). This would get me, in order from front (y-) to back (y+):
- vertical workholding
- ~ 1 x 5 of non-vacuum hold down area (dog holes, T-track, fixture plate mounts)
- 5x8 vacuum table for sheet goods
- rotary
- ATC tool rack
In my current layout, the whole work surface is 4x8 vacuum table centered with 6" non-vacuum on each side. The extra foot would add the bolded item above.
I’ve thought about that for what I’m ordering. I’ve thought about ordering a large size, but then I go out my garage and say..NOPE..no room. But I get it…thanks for sharing that info