Results of the CNCCookbook 2017 CNC Router Survey

This year, we got 160 survey responses.  Here are the results:

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72% of respondents are hobby users...

72% of respondents are hobby users, up slightly from 2016.  Overall, CNCCookbook's audience is the reverse-70% professional and 30% hobby.

CNC Router Overall Market Share...

Compared to last year, there are a number of changes:

• Carbide3D / Shapeoko moved from #2 to #1 while the pure DIY CNC machines moved down to #2
• Shopbot fell from #3 to #6
• Inventables fell from #4 to #5
• Stepcraft went from not showing up on the survey to being #4
• Generic Chinese Routers are up from #5 to #3
• Multicam moved up from #20 to #7

There are more detail changes, but those are the main ones.

The overall customer satisfaction scores are almost identical to what they were last year.

A score of 2.0 = It Rocks!, 1.0 = It’s OK, and 0.0 = Not So Good…

If we break down customer satisfaction by make, the picture is interesting.  Shopsabre coems out on top in the professional category while Carbide 3D / Shapeoko retain their top customer satisfaction crown in the hobby category.

The biggest hits were against DIY Homebrew and Generic Chinese machines.  With the advent of ever higher quality machines from companies like Shopsabre, Carbide3D, and Shopbot, it's harder to justify these budget machines.

The popularity of CNC Routers by size still overwhelmingly favors Desktop/Benchtop, but the Intermediate Free-Standing category has picked up share to become #2 instead of its #3 position last year.

Compared to last year, CNC Routers are more likely to have Dust Collection or an Enclosure and Vacuum Tables.  The popularity of Tool Changers is about the same.

CNC Router owners most commonly cut wood and plastics, but quite a few are also cutting aluminum and the other materials.

Most any CNC Router, even a lightweight one, will cut soft materials.  They can even cut aluminum if you understand the secrets behind how to cut aluminum on a CNC Router.  The trick to harder materials is how slow the router spindle can go.  Even the toughest carbide coated cutters have to spin relatively slowly on tough metals.  A tool like our G-Wizard Calculator will help you to map out exactly which materials the performance envelope of your CNC Router can accommodate.

In our next installment we talk about what features are most important to CNC Routers Users, and we name our CNCCookbook 2017 CNC Router Reader's Choice Award Winner.

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