Onefinity Woodworker Vs Shapeoko Pro

CNC Machines Shapeoko Pro
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So I am no expert in this domain…but I think I have an interesting perspective so I thought I should share.

I bought a Pro 2 months ago and it was my first foray into CNCing. It has been amazing, but every task that you need to do takes 10x the amount of effort than you actually think it does.

Some of this is learning curve, some is just it looks easier than it is, and some is babysitting the machine while it’s making it’s 6 passes and lots of retracts.

Which leads me to the comment about the table base. The Pro comes with MDF slats with four perfectly spaced holes that fit into the t track. Due to errors, I have just about killed my MDF slats. The effort to remake these, along with all the other things I’m doing during this learning experience is enough to make me cry. The comment about effort and expense that @SLCJedi makes is completely true.

So based on the fact it would take me too much effort to make the MDF slats I reached out to carbide and just ordered new ones. Why do I tell you this? It is to highlight the amount of work associated with table base. While it seems easy, looks are very deceiving.

The other thing that looks easy, but is not, is enclosures. I’m probably a week away from sharing mine in this forum, but every detail takes time to design, if you can order premade, that would be a great selling point.

The one thing I have also learnt, as I troll the various boards, is that the forum/community is the most important thing. There are going to be a million bumps along the way. You need to be able to look at historical questions and answers and have a place for new answers. (Complete side note, but @neilferreri how do you have time for so many forums and on different machines).

There is one thing that would make me choose a BRAND X over a Shapeoko. That is if BRAND X would accept 4ft wide plywood. The amount of MDF/Plywood waste around my garage is amazing PLUS every time I want to start a job, I have to cut of the plywood first. It is painful and I know I’m not alone in my frustration.

(Related but Completely different tangent…Home Depot will cut plywood for you (albeit incorrectly) using their panel saw, but Menards won’t. Yet at menards their selection is so much better and cheaper. My solution…When I wheel my cart out to the parking lot, I pull out my battery powered circular saw and rip it right there in the parking lot. The stares and claps I get are awesome…Makes it easy to load in the truck and unload it into my workshop

FYI - I’m sure I’ll think of something else later and want to edit this post…also, if my grammar is off, that is the dangers of using iPhone posting, autocorrect and one finger typing leads to the worst Grammar and autocorrections ever

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I am not quite following the issue with MDF slats- can’t they be cut out in 2 minutes on a table saw, stuck down temporarily, and then use the machine itself to make the hole pattern? I do the same with a circular saw to load sheet goods :laughing:

I agree the community is a pretty big aspect, as well as years of discovering bugs and improving the product based on user feedback. I am the one who created this thread to begin with, but have been somewhat convinced that it will be a better to stick with the Shapeoko Pro. Tons of very experienced people I can bother for help! haha

edit:
Also, I appreciate that Carbide’s software works on OS X as well. Although my primary computer is a PC, I intend to use a ~2016 MacBook laptop for control and simple sketching. Hopefully with a little wireless bluetooth gamepad for jogging.

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That’s the easy part, but then you need to get the 4 holes in the exact right location so you can attach it to the aluminium t-track.

Yet, I use mine as a reference for square and setting material against, so if you do this, the table saw approach is going to introduce some potential error and therefore you probably need to cut them out using your ahapeoko which is annoying because it requires tiling/flipping stock, because the slats are ~40inches but your max cut is 33/34

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Would a single slat fit on the diagonal?

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Are you going to make me do Pythagorus? :rofl:

It probably would, but the you could probably only do one slat at a time…argh

I think I actually figured out the best way to machine these. You need to do the bottom half first having South west as your xy home. Then rotate it 180 and have south east as your xy home. I had an earlier post where I calculated the exact spacing between holes so the information is out there (FYI - uploaded to Cutrocket). Would need to repeat this twice to make enough slats.

So now that I am thinking about this, it is possible, but again, I’d rather make projects than spend a whole evening making boring spoilboard slats.

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Haha, I have also done the parking lot trim. By far though the most attention I got was unpacking a pretty large table saw (Delta 36-725) to fit into my sedan. That took some up front measurements, careful breathing, and elbow grease.

On MDF strips - my solution is to rip the width on the aforementioned table saw, trim to length on the miter saw, then setup a few stops on the drill press table to quickly batch them out. Works nicely, and once you have a setup you can even make a few extras.

PXL_20201208_045834563
PXL_20201208_0458345634032×2268 2.57 MB

Re:thread - I was also cross-shopping the Pro vs OF, and felt like building my own bed made it too much of a kit/project vs the packaged solution of the Pro. After dealing with saggy metal bed on my SO3 XXL (non-Pro) I was very enticed by the new setup.

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Yay battery powered ripping in the parking lot crew! I finally bought a 4x8 Harbor Freight trailer to tow behind my Subaru to end that. :smiley:

When I replace the slats, I’ll do the same table saw rip, miter cut, and drill press @theworkshope posted. You can use a center punch to transfer the hole center, forsner but for the countersink, then center the thru hole in the point of the forsner.

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This is a very interesting thread, it’s a pretty competitive market in the desktop CNC world at the moment.

I had to step back a little to be objective about the other options, as I have had a great experience with Carbide3D and my Original Shapeoko 3 then ShapeokoXXL with HDZ.

Time will tell where the onefinity ends up, the movement on them seems really jerky to me, like its running point to point and slowing down at each corner, I don’t know if thats just my take on it but I see it in many videos. The round rails are a bit of an unknown, in theory round rails are a terrible idea, but they are quite robust for the duty put on them, as mentioned above there haven’t been many really experienced people push the machines yet and highlight the weaknesses

Were I going for a smaller machine, the Pro XXL would most certainly get my money, Carbide3d has SUCH a better ecosystem with the Bitsetter, CM board, Carbide Create and Carbide Motion. I have my frustrations with some of their choices (no 4x4… cmon!), but the reality is that the XXL Pro is a really polished unit at a very competitive price, with great support both at the store, on these forums and on FB.

Cheeky Sidenote… this is the 4.5kW spindle I’ve been running in for my new machine sitting next to the 1.5kw spindle from the XXL

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IMG_20210122_1735361718×773 276 KB

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I think the motion you’re seeing is based upon the acceleration (also deceleration) values. That can be tweaked in the settings, but there may be a limit with stepper torque restrictions.

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Why make the full length if the router can’t even reach all of it? If your max cut area is 33", then just make a 33" slat. It also removes the problem of your cuttable and non-cuttable work surface being uneven after surfacing.

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I thought about that, but cutting to the workable area leaves a good bit of unsecured slat to vibrate. So I left mine full length, but undercut for that reason.

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My rationale is that having a wider bed is nice for work holding so you can actually hold down a piece that large with clamps or other things that might require things like threaded inserts.

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I see the spoilboard has made it into this thread so had a quick thought about that mind you I do not have a Shapeoko Pro… yet. Once you’ve resurfaced the spoilboard a few times and need to replace the pieces would there be enough space remaining to add a 1/4 MDF piece under the existing ones to get more life out of the spoilboard. I’m assuming shimming them up 1/4" that the screw/bolts holding them down would still sit below the aluminum extrusions making up the T-slots or at least get a few more passes.

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Also assists in keeping larger pieces of wood level during tiling. I actually have a roller stand that I use to support long pieces of wood when they extend past the cutting surface area

https://www.homedepot.com/p/303652568

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You can always just glue NEW 1/2" or 3/4" MDF slats on top of the originals once they get low. Then manually jog the CNC itself to trim them flush.

Inspired by the horizontal table from this video:

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I worked out doing that sort of thing on my XL at:

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Fourteen of my posts equal the length of one of yours.
:wink:

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Before I pulled the trigger on my Pro XL I looked at probably a dozen different variants of nicer hobby-cnc machines because I have a somewhat specific set of use cases that I needed it for. The OF was definitely a top contender but the bed of the Pro and the size/breadth of the community around it was what ultimately made my decision for me. I wanted a machine that had incredible base rigidity and despite being a life long tinkerer I wanted something that I could set up and start using to make money right out of the box without having to think about all the ways I needed to improve it to get what I wanted out of it.

Each of the machines has their pros that separate them and you have to weigh what those mean to you. I lurked on this forum for a solid 2 weeks before ordering to see what kinds of things people were having issues with and seeing the response from the support team getting people parts in a day or 2 was a HUGE factor. I’m not doing production runs with this thing (yet) and it’s definitely not a primary source of income so it being down for a few days isn’t that big of a deal but forward looking longevity of a company so they can continue to support me for years is important.

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I used to have a Shark. Next Wave Automation makes the Shark and have an online forum. I would say similar but they are not similar. You never saw such a lack luster community. Maybe because I was used to this community is what made the Shark forums so dull and boring. They sell Sharks a lot of places now but a few years back they only sold them at Rockler. NWA/Shark are an example of a bad combination of machine and support. I have posted many things on this forum and always been well received. The moderators are on top of this forum and keep things moving along.

My only gripe with the forum is not with the forum but people who are frustrated and write in venting. Usually they have not attempted to fix their problems they just want the problem to magically go away. It is a poor craftsman that blames his tools. I have had some weirdness from time to time but upon analysis and reaching out to the community I have been able to fix my problems or concerns.

A while back I had posted a link to Myers Wood Shop breaking up with his Shapeoko and getting a OneInfinity. I Broke Up With My Shapeoko CNC - YouTube The video was funny but brings up a good point. I am old school and I always go home with the girl that I took to the dance. Maybe I will take a new girl to the next dance but for now I am quite happy with the one I got.

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Ben Meyer’s video itself wasn’t directly biased…but his overall stance is bias. The break up video was ment to through shade on shapeoko…I mind you that he had a fit here because he wasn’t included in a beta test…He is a YouTuber and from what I can gather that is his primary focus is YouTube videos. His shapeoko videos are no longer getting him views. So to expand his subscribers he jumped to Onefinty…we have no insight into what the arrangement between them is…hopefully shapeoko doesn’t send him more free stuff to try to sway him back…

Onefinity seems like an OK machine but the user interface isn’t as developed…with that said as bobcnc has shown anyone can make a cnc its everything else that makes the machine…software, customer service, innovation, and most importantly a forum that let’s you talk through your issues(with cncing)

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