Hey everyone! Complete noobie here!
 

Hi, my name is Robert Hawthorne, and I am 26 years old, I am from Pennsylvania. I am a complete noob to CNC routers, although I have always taken pleasure in obscure little projects, and think this would enhance all of them. I would love to have the ability to custom machine plastics, wood, and some aluminum for my little projects. I am a crane operator, and for the past few months have been building a remote control friction crane with small electrical clutches and mechanical brakes. This project has completely highlighted my utter lack of fabricating tools/machines. I have had to design the crane in such a way that I can build it with basic tools. It has made it larger than it has to be and a lot heavier. Well, enough of that.

So I would like to have a machine with a cutting area of 2'x2'. I am not sure on the vertical axis, but the more the better. I would like to be able to cut plastics, carbon fiber, wood of all kinds, and "some" aluminum. I am not worried about cutting speed or "rapids"? I am looking at a budget at around 3000$-3500$. I have a desktop computer I plan on using for the router, but other than that I am completely empty handed.

I want to have a complete plan that I am all but certain will work before I begin ordering parts and building. I am open to any and all contributions and suggestions. I will be checking this post daily and posting more questions regularly. Thanks for reading and I appreciate everything.

Welcome to the forum. THe MechMate is really to big of a platform for 2x2.
4x4 is really the smallest you can build on this platform.

But I am sure if you build a 4x4 you will be happy with the results.

...and if you build a 4' x 4' variant, the gantry can be easily be moved to a larger bed without modification when you realize how awesome a MM is! (no bias here :)

hello Rob,
I build a machine 125 x 80 cm cutting area. but my footprint is 160x 130. ( I am not that good in food and inches) my x is 80 and my Y is 125. I build it this way so I can easy " upgrade " to 125 x 245 cm. My available space in my workshop is the reason I have to build a "smaller" machine.
budged is much depending on how you are going to arrange your material and your aces to machines. visiting scrapyards, looking for used materials can reduce your costs, if you can do welding work, drilling and some turning work yourself that will reduce your costs. on the other hand, it will take longer time to finish your machine. the most nice of this forum is, that you can find an amazing amount of information to build, and customize a machine YOU want. The concept is proven over a 100 machines all over the world, build by people with different skill level and budged. and It surprises my how inventive people are with a low budged.
Define what you want to make, and if a mechmate is going to be a suitable tool for you