I Touched the NestWorks C500 CNC and It Was Good

Like many of you, I’ve been seeing ads for the NextWorks C500 Kickstarter campaign. To be honest, I was skeptical of it and initially saw it as a kind of budget alternative to the Makera Carvera. But I was in Shenzhen, China this past week for the city’s Maker Faire and got the opportunity to visit the NestWorks office. After seeing and touching the NestWorks C500 for myself, I’m sold.

The NestWorks C500 is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter and the campaign has already raised well over $5,000,000 USD from more than 1,500 backers. Super Early Birds can get a C500 starting at $2,700 USD and the specs alone are impressive.

But you can see those specs and the marketing claims for yourself on the Kickstarter campaign page. What I want to talk about are my impressions from seeing the NestWorks C500 firsthand.

My immediate thought upon seeing the C500 was “holy cow, this thing is big!” The machine weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 pounds and its size really stretches the definition of a “desktop” CNC mill. Neither of those are bad things, because CNC mills need to be big and heavy to work well.

As you’ll know if you’ve read my reviews of the Makera Carvera Air or the Shariff DMC2 Mini, I am not easy to woo when it comes to milling machines. I’ve worked as a machinist and CNC programmer on big, industrial mills and so my standards are high. But I left the NestWorks office feeling like the C500 very well could become the best machine on the market under $10,000.

Why? Because of the attention to detail and the demonstrable understanding of machining principles. While there is no substitute for a few tons of iron when it comes to hogging steel at high speed, NestWorks has done everything possible to make the C500 as good as a machine of this size can be.

They did that with a combination of conventional techniques and modern tech enhancements. The former include a rigid box frame, beefy linear rails, a powerful spindle motor, and precision ballscrews. The latter include vision-assisted 3D probing, closed-loop stepper control, and an intuitive integrated control interface.

I was also surprised to see that the dedicated CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) software, programmed entirely in-house, actually seems to work well. I’ve watched a lot of companies attempt that and none of them have done it to my satisfaction, but I received a thorough demonstration of the NestWorks CAM software and truly believe that the “one click” claims will hold true in most situations. When they don’t, the advanced features will. If even those aren’t enough, users can always turn to Autodesk Fusion CAM, for which there will be an official post processor.

In fact, I believe that the CAM software may be the most valuable asset NestWorks has to offer. I have no doubt that the C500 will be a very capable machine — especially for the price. But another company could, in theory, replicate that. The CAM software, however, adds tremendous value that nobody else can match right now.

I say that because the truth is that CNC milling is difficult and CAM has a steep learning curve. By creating their own intuitive and mostly automatic CAM software, NestWorks has made the C500 accessible to beginners. At the same time, they’ve increased the value proposition for experienced users by reducing time spent in CAM.

So, if you’ve seen the NestWorks C500, but haven’t been sure if you should back the campaign, I say go for it. There is little doubt in my mind that you’ll be happy you did.