What do you really get for a $350 desk top engraver ?

All in all i was happy with what the machine could do. looking at a picture of a small tool and holding one in your hands is two different things  

one thing i did notice with this machine is that surface finish drops on the more complex cutting moves on say a angle cut or circular cut. i have been trying to pinpoint the cause of this but i am still looking, it's not horrible but it could be better. my first thought was machine resolution or belt tension, i tried a finer resolution which might have helped a tiny bit and did some tweaking on the X axis to get the belt tighter to try that today to see if that is the problem?
at first i thought it might have been a rigidity related issue but after playing around with finished passes quite a bit i ruled that out after noticing the straight cuts were really good. i would think a tandem axis is going to be more rigid with 2 bels and motors opposed to the X axis with a single belt and motor. i think tests have proved this for me. i can actually get a .06 stepover around ,5 deep with the side of the cutter on the Y axis but get into problems if i get that aggressive with a cut on the X axis.

one other observation is the closed loop steppers being a huge benefit to having something work well in the end. i would also say over sized motors are good way to go too. food for thought Tommy if you build one   

if i were to do it over again i would have doubled the size of the motor on the X axis in relationship to the size of the Y motors. i skimped on the power supplies and should have spent a little more for 48V rather than 36V too. wider belts might not have been a bad idea as well as long as sharp bends don't kill the life as a result.

this was a R & D type project for me and i had no idea what to expect but i'm happy to pass along my finings. the machine does well for what it is and i am just nit picking on little stuff. But regardless i tiny machine like this could be a time saver for you i think.