As some have mentioned, the Taig is a very good desktop CNC. I personally own and use a Sherline milling machine with CNC, and I love it. It might be the lightest, smallest option in this arena that has the capability to mill things like Titanium, with great precision. I’m still an amateur, but it’s been really fun / empowering. Oh, and the full setup costs less than $2k, and there’s a plethora of tooling and accessories by Sherline… they try to give the same options users of full sized mills have.
DiscountCampus is the retailer I’ve found to have the best prices on all the Sherline stuff; I put that here because they have poor SEO, and I wish I had bought mine through them instead of used on eBay; would’ve payed the same and got some software licenses thrown in. I currently run Techne CAD/CAM, some custom G-Code generators, and LinuxCNC (separate boxen), and it’s a good setup for my needs… all free software.
