I’m very jealous of the Woodmizer! It’s been a bucket list item for 3 generations of my family.
This is a fantastic community…dare I say the best? It always shocks me how important the information and help I get here is to the success of my CNC carving journey. Welcome and you have chosen wisely in your purchase of a Shapeoko! By the way, what size did you get? 4x4 or 4x2?
Gary, I got the 4x4. I don’t have any specific plans for the CNC, currently, other than learning. My wife always tells me that I buy all this stuff, CNC, sawmill, laser, 3D printer, etc and once I learn how to use it I move on to another challenge. That is partly true because I thoroughly love the learning phase. But I hope to make a little pocket change with the CNC at some point.
I will say there is definitely an opportunity to make “pocket change” with the CNC. It’s my wife’s and my side hustle and we find that it’s been a successful venture for us (we purchased our 4x2 with the intent of making cash and had a plan in place before purchasing).
We have a page on that:
https://carbide3d.com/pages/cnc1k/
(well, the making money thing, for the fascination, learn, move-on thing I think you’ll need to check w/ your therapist…)
Dang, William, I was sure y’all would have therapist available 
. Thanks for the link, I will certainly spend some time reviewing it.
Welcome fellow sawyer and CNCer, the journey begins! You wont be disappointed in the S5.1 Pro.
Great community here and don’t hesitate to ask questions. We all have answers, mostly right and sometimes the ones to your question! 
My therapy is using the machine — hopefully I’ll have a bit of software availing myself of the recent DXF import update nailed down and will get to making.
Hello community.
Shane here from Central Wisconsin. Awaiting the arrival of my Shapeoko 5.1 Pro 4x2 as I step up my CNC game and take on larger and more detailed projects.
I’m not new to the hobby as I’ve been designing on Fusion 360, Carveco and Lightburn for some time now. My entry into the CNC game is a Genmitsu Prover3030 with multiple spindles and a 10W laser head. This machine has served me very well and has been stellar for my needs.
I’ve developed several SCUBA diving accessories, which I market to public safety and recreational divers. I am an active public safety diver and enjoy decompressing by designing and fabricating.
My upgrade reasons mainly surround the requests I’ve received from my employer and others by word of mouth.
I consider myself a novice CNC operator and work things out as i go with communities such as this.
I know I already have an assistance need to convert a crv3d file for a project, but have no plans on jumping to Aspire. So if you are able to help a newbie in this community it would be much appreciated.
Glad to be here and looking forward to the new Shapeoko.
Welcome to the community! The easiest way to get help with a file is to post it with your question. There are masters on here that can point you in the right direction. The search function works well and have usually answered my question looking at others resolution.
I will jump in and say I’m not real sure about OTHER communities, but this one sure is about as great as it can be with extremely helpful advice to get you from point a to point b successfully. They’ve pulled me out of a couple holes for sure!!
Congrats on a fantastic purchase too, by the way! Did you happen to get a spindle as well?
And welcome to this awesome community.
I did not get the spindle at this time, mainly due to budgeting. I’ll run my Makita for now as I’ve had good luck with it, but a nice VFD is in the plans at some point.
I think you’ll learn just fine if you have 3d modeling experience and woodworking experience.
I’m jealous of the hickory. Haven’t met pecan to know if I should be jealous. Cnc pairs well with a mill.
Howdy community! It’s been awhile since I was here last and a lot has happened in my life: multiple surgeries for my wife, a dramatic and medically-complex birth of my son, plus job changes makes CNC time a bit low on the priority list.
I’m looking forward to getting back into my CNC work and enjoying the soothing view of watching my Shapeoko HDM slice through every material with ease. My current project is to make a jig for my trim router to inset some sewing machine hinges into a murphy bed project.
I look forward to talking to you all more in the coming months.
Hey there everyone. New to CNC. Been around it at a few jobs, but never went into it myself. I recently ordered a Shapeoko 5.1 Pro 4x4 with the 65mm VFD spindle and the leg kit. It arrives tomorrow. Im very excited. I have zero experience, and I get to learn this completely from scratch. I do have a good bit of woodworking and construction experience, and that is a major reason I got the machine. Just to have another weapon in my little garage woodshop. I’m sure I will be lurking around here asking lots of questions before too long, so thanks in advance for everyone’s patience with me.
Welcome to this fantastic community! I was in your shoes about 10 months ago and let me tell you WHAT…I got over a lot of hurdles right here with this incredible group of experts. They shock me with how attentive they are to the issues I have struggled with and helped me become way better at my CNC carving abilities.
Watch all the Carbide 3d training videos! Have fun! Work through any issues until you resolve them! Start small.
And…LUCKY! getting in on the 5.1 Pro with the leg kit. I spent a lot of time and effort building my work table for my 5.0 Pro, 4x2. And I do love my 65mm VFD spindle.
Welcome to the mayhem!! Gary gave you some great advice, learn your machine and software. Practice on scrap wood, use the speeds and feeds in Carbide Create for the selected bits. They are conservative, learn with them and different types of material first then you can dial them in!
Thanks for the replies and the kind words! The boxes are in the garage now. Going to have a buddy come over this weekend to be an extra set of hands for assembly. I also got a Microsoft Surface Go 2 with Windows 11 to run Carbide Motion. I figured it would be best to keep my expensive PC out of the dusty shop. So, I haven’t been on any kind of forum in a long time. Is there any particular etiquette here? I know everyone hates answering questions that have been answered a thousand times, so I will do my best to utilize the search feature. Anything else?
The rules are pretty straight-forward:
https://community.carbide3d.com/tos
The big thing is, this is for Carbide 3D customers and their use of Carbide 3D machines and software and we want folks to help others.
Hello all!
New to the carbide world but not the CNC world. I now have 3 CNC machines. The HDM V3 being the newest addition. I run my machines almost every day of the week from early morning until late in the evening. I got into this as a hobby about 10-11 years ago. And now it is my full time gig.
What’re you making on all those machines?