Worth buying with no experience?

I’m interested in responses

I bought one with little experience, and found it was very easy to put together, but it takes some time. The instructions include videos for each step.

My first big mistake was not tightening the belts enough. Once I got that sorted, I haven't had to touch them in years. The machine has simply worked for me, no upkeep of any kind needed.

The learning curve is in the feeds/speeds/bits. You have to experiment and learn how fast you can cut with each bit, how deep, and what the best spindle speed is.

You will want a V-bit and an 'end mil' from day one. Personally, I don't buy the top tier bits or the cheapest, but instead get the ones somewhere in between. I don't own a band saw, planer, table saw or anything like that, and have been doing ok without them.

Other than bits and a computer to run it, you don't need anything else. But you may want to build/buy a dust collection system. Nothing fancy is needed. Just a shop vac with a funnel style dust extractor will work.

I bought the 1000mm model before the X-controller was released. I've found that I could have gone with the smaller size, but occasionally it is nice to have a large working area.

I have a 1000mm x carve, I've had it for a couple of years now and I love it. First off 1000mm turns out to be about 750x750mm carvable area which was a bit of a disappointment when I first got it, but I've learned to make due. Calibration/squaring/level of the bed is something I've struggled to fine tune, but even without it being perfect it still outputs some great stuff (especially if they're small projects). Once I got it calibrated enough for my purposes I really don't have to change it up again for months. I've carved hundreds of hours of plywood on the machine and gone through a ton of bits (especially the 1/32nds), and I think its paid for itself several times over at this stage.

I will say that the x carve is often just one step in a much larger process. There's a lot of finish work needed with most of the wood projects I've cut out on the machine. I use razor blades, orbital sanders, and a ton of hand sanding to get something prepped for finish. I carve mostly signs and art pieces, but have also cut out several set of Catan to give away as gifts which really take a lot of refining after cutting all the pieces out.

At its price point it's a pretty great machine, but I think if I could do it again I would have spent a couple thousand more and gotten a 4x4 or a 4x8 table from someone like avid cnc. Large format stuff is hard to figure out on such a small machine. But for an entry level cnc, I don't think you can get much better.

I had 0 experience when I bought mine. Their online software Easel makes it very easy to get up and running quickly. Once I got it set up I’ve had to do almost no calibration. That being said, I’m not doing much that requires extreme precision. In my experience, once you calibrate it, it’s going to stay that way for quite some time. I don’t use mine all too often (couple times a month maybe) and if you’re running it hard it might need more love than I have to give mine.

I have an xcarve, wish I had gotten a Shapeoko as they seem way more rigid, and I like how the new ones will bring the cutter in front of the table to do edge work on boards.

If you're not doing large parts get a smaller CNC (especially in the hobby grade) because you'll prefer the extra rigidity.

Worth buying with no experience?

Yes, with this caveat: you have to have a growth mindset. In psychology, a "fixed mindset" says "I can't, here's why", whereas a growth mindset says "I can do anything - because I can be persistent & figure it out until I achieve success". So it's that "I can't" mentality when you run into barriers & quit, versus the "I can & I will" mindset. This is important for two reasons:

1. You have to build & calibrate the machine itself. It's a surprisingly simple process, just a bit long & made up of a bunch of individual steps. However, it's also not like a desktop inkject printer, where you just pop in some cartridges & go - you have to mess around with different tool bits, speeds, etc.
2. You have to design out your own workflows for everything. Do you want to make a 60" wooden banner using Illustrator? What's your plan to export the AI file & tile it on your machine? Want to make an artistic carved piece in Fusion360? What's your workflow for that?

If you have a growth mindset, then it's just a matter of making checklists for how to do things & tinkering with the machine until you get it to do what you want it to do. Not everyone wants to have a growth mindset when it comes to creative projects...some people are more interested in creation than tinkering.

With a DIY machine like the X-Carve, you get a nice ready-to-assemble kit & the decent Easel software to get started, which helps reduce some of those barriers...but there will still be issues & you're still gonna have to go mess around with things to get it where you want. Which is totally fine IF you have a growth mindset, which makes those things not be show-stoppers.

There are lot of people running full businesses with the X-carve, so while it's a "cheap" entry-level machine, you can do a ton of amazing stuff with it if you're even remotely creative. Also, if you can manage a Silhouette cutter, you can manage an X-carve. If you can build a computer, you can build an X-carve. It's not so much about the process itself as much as the mindset, which sounds weird being a wood-based hobby & all, but that's really what drives it!

Checklist time:

So let's cobble together a basic checklist here:

1. I don't know your needs, but I'd recommend getting the largest machine they sell so that you can handle future projects. I have the 1000mm & wish I had a bigger one (they don't offer anything bigger currently, unfortunately!), but this fit my budget & my space for now.
2. They do have monthly financing available via Affirm. If you go that route, I'd recommend getting the full $2k package with everything in it - tools, kit, software, etc. Add in a few different bits from their shop as well.
3. You'll need a sturdy table to put it on, plus storage for supplies, plus power to it, plus a computer to talk to it, plus ventilation so you're not breathing in toxic dust. Some people build cheap wooden enclosures & use shopvacs with filters for dust control. Lots of options available.
4. Document all of your workflows. Sounds like Fusion360 + Illustrator will be a good combo for you. Check out PicSender. Vcarve & Aspire are also amazing. You'll have to tinker around with things & figure out design settings, export settings, feed rates vs. types of materials, etc.
5. Join every forum, bulletin board, Facebook group, subreddit, etc. you can find. Read up daily on new posts & old posts. Immerse yourself & learn everything you can. I've gotten dozens & dozens of amazing ideas from doing this, as well as learned about all kinds of cool hardware offerings & software packages. Plus it keeps you plugged into the community & appraised of all of the cool stuff going on, like attaching Jtech engraving lasers to your machine!
6. Create an ongoing project plan (I have some spreadsheets available for that, if you want a copy!) so that you're always DOING stuff with your machine. Fancy machines are like exercise gyms...super easy to get a pass to them & use them for a few days & then never or rarely touch them again. It doesn't matter if it's a computer or an Instant Pot or a CNC machine, for most people, without some kind of simple planning system to guide them forward, they're not very good at making consistent progress, just because of how human nature is.

For me, I come from more of a techie background than a woodworking background. I have limited tools & space, and want easy, want repeatability, and want precision. A CNC lets you kind of have all kinds of tools. Like, I used to build a lot of home theater & car speakers & subs, and I had all kinds of little bits & jigs & whatnot for doing various holes & cutouts...now I can just draw it up on a computer & carve it out of MDF - so much easier!

You may also want to look at Shapeoko & CNC4newbies. For me, the X-carve was the easiest entry, both in terms of having something as turnkey as possible with a large support group & being affordable as a home hobby user, out of all of them.

Technically the Shapeoko is a better machine, and the CNC4newbies unit is a far better machine, but I don't really have any complaints about my X-Carve - it's a super cool tool to have in your inventory, and if you couple it with a simple but solid planning checklist like I use, you can consistently pump out really cool stuff with it!

To reiterate what others have said: low maintenance, get the V-bits, 1000mm is smaller than you’d think, and finish/finish prep will be the most time consuming part.

I’d also recommend the z-probe. Dust collection is good too, but in hindsight I would have saved that money and built an enclosure around it with a 4” port.

Overall I’ve found it completely changed my woodworking strategy. Rather than building jigs and tools to make non-standard cuts I now turn to the CNC to make templates. With that in mind, I’ve invested in a router table for flush trimming the patterns and intend to get a bandsaw to speed up the process. I’ve also purchased a spoil-board bit; the CNC should be able to double as a giant planer if calibrated correctly.

Enjoy your journey!

I run a commercial sign shop, we added a 1000x1000 last fall, it has easily paid for itself. It was pretty easy to learn to use, it is our first CNC machine.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eL7PqEpA0Qw