Carbide 3D Reviews 16

I purchased my machine on 1/18/25, it was delivered on 1/27/2025. Since that day I have had maybe 3 days of use out of the machine.

-On delivery, the router ordered with the machine did not include the collets or collet nuts, so I was completely dead in the water until 1/31/2025 when the new part arrived. Also requested spare limit switch as mine had come damaged in shipping.

-Went to go start my first job - the bit setter was not responsive in Carbide Motion. Turns out, the small extension for the bit setter was wired incorrectly from the factory. I rigged myself a fix for that issue on Monday the 3rd after the issue was verified and I received the correct wiring orientation from Carbide. limit switch did not arrive with new collets.

2/5/2025 replacement extension for the bitsetter and replacement limit switch finally arrive
2/6/2025 I managed a single cut before the main controller failed (limit switch stuck in CLOSED position). Spent days fighting with support to get replacement part sent, as they were trying to force me into a video call to prove to them the issue. Not acceptable. I run a workshop, not an office. There is no internet or cell reception in this shop. It is not physically possible. I also work full time during their operating hours. In combination, absolutely not happening.

2/10/2025, I finally receive my replacement controller. I have a single day of use out of the machine on Monday 2/17, where there are no issues with the maching, huzzah!

2/18/2025, main controller fails yet again. I am yet again requested to do a video call, which I refuse, because I AM UNABLE.

My machine is currently inoperable. I have had the use of my machine for maybe 5% of the time I’ve owned it. QC is absolutely bottom shelf. I have had to fight with support to believe their own FAQ page, and to actually read my messages about their own descriptions of the faults provided in their own documentation. Every package sent to me was sent as slowly and cheaply as possible. I cannot in good conscience recommend this machine to ANYONE let alone a newcomer to this industry. I will be moving on to literally any other manufacturer.

I recently bought a Shapeoko 5 Pro and it's my first CNC. There is a learning curve no matter how much you do your homework. Carbide3D support has always been there to answer my questions and help with issues with super-fast turn around.

You can get them on weekends and hear back within just a few hours during the day. The support folk know their stuff. No need to be kicked up to a higher level support person, no nonsense, no run-around, no down-time!. You get the right answers right away.

I know of only one other company on the planet that provides support this good.

Carbide 3D is an awesome company that listen to their users. The users play an active role in developing the machines and software.
I am an active user on their community form and the biggest issue is CNCing requires multiple discipline. You don't just click and it carves you something. You need to know computers, the design software, conversation software, the software to drive the machine ...ETC
You don't just turn it on and it works, everyone's environment is different. you need to understand your environment.
So yes there is a learning curve. The good news is they have a great community that goes out of their way to help you. Ask any question.

Carbide 3D creates one of the best packages to help you down this journey. As close as you can get to a one stop in this field. They are active on the forms and are quick to listen.

I have had the Shapeoko 5 for a month now and have not been able to make the first thing. One thing after another. To boot their service socks. Have called them at least 10 times and still have never spoken to someone so don't expect a call back. Someone in sales not service did send the collets to hold the bits pretty fast but anything else crickets. No the thing is giving me an error about a homing switch is bad. Remember I have not cut a thing yet. Very disappointed and frustrated with this thing. Maybe now someone will pick up the phone and call me back but I'm not holding my breath.

Great Customer Service!
I have had a couple of issues with my Shapeoko 5, however the customer service that this company provides is the best you could ask for. They are here to help and a quick with resolution! Great purchase and great experience!

I recently purchased the MC Etcher Diamond Engraver Bit set of both in the 120 and 90 degree tip.
I am very happy with it so far. It has performed well on a variety of surfaces such as aluminum, steel, galvanized metal sign sheets, and glass. It has opened another level of usage for my Longmill CNC.
* Just a note to Canadian buyers to be prepared to pay duty on your order when it arrives. I was a little disappointed with that but that isn't the company's problem and I see myself using these bits quite often:) go ahead and order in spite of paying that.

This company is very good at marketing their product but terrible much past that. Have been trying to get ahold of them by phone and email for over a month about 2 machines that I own and anytime I am able to get a response I am told that I will need to be updated later on by someone else and ignored. This company seems to be upset by their own lack of responsibility and takes it out on their customers. After doing more research I have seen that this is an issue of theirs and I wish I would have known this before sinking any money into their brand.

I’m the 3rd owner of a lightly used Shapeoko 3XL. (The second owner never used it). When I started setting it up, I could not get it to home. I would receive limit switch hit errors. It became somewhat clear that the machine’s build, (by the first owner) was a little funky, obviously this is not Carbide 3D's, (C3D) issue. Eventually after I could not solve the issue, I reached out to C3D support. Initially it was great. One of the techs emailed back right away, from there we exchanged several emails. At the tech’s request I provided photos of my machine and a video of it running through the homing process. The tech had me try a few things, nothing seemed to solve the issue, only change the behavior. The tech and I had a pleasent conversation on the phone. We both decided a rebuilding of the machine was logical. In doing that I wanted to upgrade some of the parts. I had a few questions about things I may need, and what is included with the accessories I was planing to upgrade. The tech was unsure about how to answer my questions and promised to email me back. After two weeks I still have not heard from the tech or anyone else. The irritation comes from now being ignored. I emailed the tech a few times and left two voicemails. I came to a point where I decided my questions were now sales related and not support related, so I called and left a voicemail for sales. After a few days I email sales, and left a private message on C3D’s Facebook page. It’s disappointing because it didn't have to be this way. Carbide 3D is said to have top notch customer service, yet I now feel any future issues I have, I'll need to look else where for help. I did ended up ordering the upgraded parts, so hopefully the rebuild solves the machine's issues.

I really can't speak about other CNC builders customer service as I have not had any experience with them, but Carbide 3D's is excellent. Had a problem that drove me nuts but always assumed it was my inexperience with CNCing that was the root cause. Finally after weeks of frustration I emailed tech support to see if they could at least point me in the right direction for a solution. They jumped right in and started to trouble shoot with me. Turns out while checking something else I notice a stepper motor shaft was bent. Sent them the photo so they could see the problem and they overnighted a new one no questions asked. Now the machine works far better than expected. They took the time to directly help me, not send me to a knowledge bank or user group like some companies do.

Well built with solid components and extrusions, but it doesn't appear to meet the CE standards required for it to be sold in Europe or the UK, so be aware of that.

Overall I was happy with the machine itself, but mine started to present random events, causing damage to the stock being cut, essentially trashing the project.

Carbide 3D tried to resolve the issue, but were unable to do so after three months of trying. They insisted it was neither the hardware nor the software, believing it was user error, but I believe there is a conflict between the software and the tool length measuring device (BitSetter) that caused the problem.

Both the vendor and manufacturer declined my request for a refund or a replacement, but the vendor eventually agreed to a refund, only after I'd initiated court action.

I'm actually quite disappointed this didn't work out for me, because the machine (this was a Shapeoko 3 XXL. I can't speak for any of their other machines) is a solid workhorse, reasonably easy to put together and good quality for the price range, but I would recommend and future buyers check out the Carbide 3D community forum, before you make any commitment.

In fact, if you're thinking about starting out on your CNC hobby journey, I strongly recommend you watch every video tutorial and join every social network forum you can, for whichever machine you're interested in, before you buy it.

Owned a Shapeoko 3 XXL for many years, always a great machine and perfect way to get into the world of CNC machining. Great support from Carbide 3D as well!

Been an owner for several years now. Customer service is top notch - very responsive and has resolved many issues (some of which were caused by user error) at no cost to me. User forum is very useful and inspiring. Learning CNC is not easy and Carbide3D has guided me through my journey and at a very reasonable and competitive cost.

I've been impressed with the quality of work this machine has produced for going on 4 years now. End mills IMO in relation to understanding what each type does, how it does it, and most importantly which is best for each situation, is by far the most misunderstood aspect of CNC machines. It has its fair share of issues but 100% of all those issues can either be translated into user error or fixable mechanical issues at worst.

Customer service from these folks is impeccable. Someone is almost always available to assist whether it be in a FB group or the company technical support itself and a lot of times nights and weekends. I've had communications in my support needs over the years from support folks, Winston the legend himself, and even the Execs, Rob and Edward, of this company in the past and that says a lot to me.

End result for me is it was simply a great decision for a hobby machine. When or if the time ever comes to upgrade to commercial-type machinery, this machine will likely stay put as well because its simply an easy and quick machine to use/understand.

I have owned a standard sized Shapeoko SO3 since October 2020. The components are of a reasonable build quality. The SO3 machine represented really good value, especially when compared with similar machines on the market. After I had assembled my machine, I found that machining marks on the workpieces could be a regular issue.

I used the Carbide 3D community forum to discover better ways to assemble the machine. In the event, I stripped the machine and rebuilt it and this took about 6 weeks, rather than the initial 3 days I had spent. By the time I had finished the complete rebuild, I had removed all machining marks from my workpieces. At that time I was cutting mainly MDF and softwoods.

I found the belt tensioning system to be very awkward and I felt it had been poorly designed. I modified my machine to take a different belt tensioning system, created by one of the Carbide 3D forum members. I now can tension all three belts to the same tension in about one minute.

Another modification I made was to remove the 18mm MDF baseboard and I fitted a 12mm thick Saunders Machine Works (SMW) aluminium tooling fixture plate with 84 x M6 threaded holes. I also purchased a couple of SMW modular vices. The vices and the tooling fixture plate contributed enormously to a complete change in machine rigidity and I could machine metal to within plus or minus 0.001" with ease.

I added a laser to my machine and was able to machine a variety of materials including softwood, hardwood, ceramic, glass, stone, slate, aluminium and brass. The machine was working very well and I purchased a Carbide 3D BitSetter tool length measuring device and a Carbide 3D BitZero stock X,Y and Z measurement device. This allowed multiple tools to be used on a single job.

I was also using Carbide Create and Carbide Motion software. The BitSetter occasionally produced problems in that it either caused the cutter to cut air some distance above the workpiece. Occasionally it would run a measurement cycle that was very slow and tried to measure the tool length from the top of its 95mm travel.

Over a period of time I saw quite a few complaints in the community forum about Z height and workpieces damaged while using BitSetter. I reported a few myself but these were usually ascribed to user errors.

Recently I experienced an unplanned and unprogrammed event where the tool just plunged through my workpiece at rapid speed. It was an extremely dangerous event.

I wrote to Carbide 3D support and supplied data and images but they were not able to assist. I wrote directly to the COO with a long complaint about how dangerous this event was.

Unfortunately, there is no log kept by the software and random events are not captured by the software. The BitSetter is a switch so it is a dumb item which has no intelligence. When things go wrong like this, it is just the software misinterpreting something.

The company are not looking at the software and they never have. Ideally, they should be torture testing their machinery until it fails. They can capture the event on video and see a log.

The software (Carbide Motion) is very clearly dangerous and having written several times recently and received no response, I have no choice but to make this issue very public.

I am very worried about the safety of users who have a BitSetter and use Carbide Motion. The software developer does not acknowledge the possibility that this is a software fault in the Carbide Motion . True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge... for we can all learn that which we do not know. True ignorance is the refusal to acquire new knowledge.

The SO3 machine is probably worth a comfortable 4 star rating. I can only give it one star because the company is deliberately ignoring what is a very dangerous safety issue.

I do not put my own hands anywhere within the working envelope when the machine is running. On YouTube, one can see many people who do put their hands inside the work envelope of a working CNC machine. This particular fault would cause a user to possibly lose their fingers, hands or an arm.

After repeatedly trying to contact Carbide 3D support via e-mail, as well as the COO of Carbide 3D, this is an inexplicable and hugely disappointing response to this particular dangerous event. It is impossible for me to recommend this company and potential users will have to make their own choices.

I'm using the Nomad since 1.5 years and I'm still a big fan! Lately, I noticed that the spindle started making a lot of noise. I contacted support and was helped quickly and effectively. Big thanks!
The only drawback I noticed with this company is that their products are often sold out.

Love the Shapeoko. Great built and design. Thing is a work horse and never had issues. Shipped and delivered on time and no issues.