I thought it was the money you need to spend at a minimum to get into CNC

Be careful of those 3018 Gantry Machines. Many/most/all have no means to directly level the bed. You have to resort to tweaking mounting screws, in their clearance holes, all over the place. Most of the time you're chasing your own tail.

Unless you can do this levelling – or modify the machine so that direct levelling is possible (another job I have on the shelf) you won't get much accuracy. And forget any fine-line engraving.

Edited By Bandersnatch on 02/09/2020 22:53:20

A useful source of info on the small gantry routers is MYCNCUK worth a look, you could be tempted to go for a home build such as this:-

All the aluminium extrusions and parts readily available and could be much more rigid (and flat) than the el-cheapo oriental ones. There are some designs on there for gantry machines that would probably be more robust than a Bridgeport!

John

Edit: forgot to put the link in

Edited By Journeyman on 03/09/2020 10:21:32