Nomad in addition to SO3?

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Just curious, for those that own both a SO3 and a Nomad, which machine gets the most use? I have owned my XXL for a couple years now, but I’ve always looked at the little Nomad like “I could find a use for that.”. I need more tools like I need more Snickers bars, but I really like Snickers bars, haha!!! Thoughts?

Thanks,

Dan

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I have both. Though still working on getting the shapeoko up and running.
I love the nomad and still getting my bearings on it. Just started playing with aluminum on it. I know the machine is capable, but still working on my comfort.
I’ve mostly been doing wood projects with it.
Slight nitpick here. It’s slow. It does great work, but jobs take quite a bit more time than I expected. Having worked with the makerspaces shapeoko 3 I know how much more quickly it can go through some of the projects I’ve done on the nomad.

I think I will use both when I have them both up and running but most of the projects I have in mind are a bit bigger or better suited projects for the shapeoko.

I guess it depends on the use case you have in mind. Certainly is a good time to pick one up though.

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I find them wonderfully complementary and use them in tandem or synergistically:

  • larger wood projects made on the Shapeoko will have metal hardware machined on the Nomad
  • I’ll make replacement MDF wasteboards on the Shapeoko for the Nomad, &c.

The big advantage for the Nomad are (of course) the integrated fixturing, esp. the flip frame — I really need to find time to work up a similar system for the Shapeoko, or better still, make that 4th axis.

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I have both. I initially bought a Nomad 883 Pro, and although it was great, I found myself needing to do parts that wouldn’t fit on the bed. If it was just a few here and there, I could have made it work (and did for a few).
Advantages of the Nomad: Super easy to get started with machining, more precise, quieter.
Advantages of the SO3: Much larger, can cut just about anything, much more power than the nomad.
So as will says, if you’ve got a variety of projects they can be quite complementary. Because of my particular project mix, and my inability to stop myself from tinkering, I find myself using the SO3 almost exclusively these days - not because the nomad isn’t great, it just isn’t big enough for my projects.

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