CNC Router Machine Vasto

Great CNC router. Packaged really well for the abuse it took getting to me. Easy to put together. Docs are easy to follow. Runs well out of the box. Taking a star off because of the lack of rigid work surface. A very rigid frame is ruined by a weak table. I knew this from doing my research and have already added a middle support to help address the issue. Should be shipped with the middle support.

I’ve had the vasto for about a month and so far it has been great!! I look forward to seeing what this machine is capable of.

Even if it's not the cheapest option, this router has an amazing build quality, and linear rails on all axis make a huge difference. I used some with linear rods and some with rollers on V-Slot, that's way superior.
Assembly is easy, tuning also is. Documentation is on point. I don't think one can be disappointed buying one.

The machine is heavy duty and the bearing screws are super smooth. Industrial quality in a desktop machine, brilliant!

This machine is the absolute BEST at the price point.

Linear rails and ballscrews are ABSOLUTELY worth it

For metals, this machine can handle it after upgrading to at least a 1kw spindle/router, but it really benefits from a solid bed. If you can pour epoxy granite or use a sturdy fixture plate, this machine will glide through anything

Juust got my new Vasto, this machine is well built and designed. In have done a few smaller jobs and I am very impressed with how smooth and accurate it runs. On to bigger more detailed carves.

The supplied spindle is not great for cutting metals. Its 48Vdc noisy and has small bearings and a thin shell.

If you want to upgrade the spindle many high power spindles are 80mm diameter - which is NOT supported. The mounting bolt holes for the spindle bracket are not wide enough apart to support any available 80mm spindle mount.

If you decide to go water cooled then you are limited to some 800W or 1.5kw (everything over that wattage is 80mm or more diameter and even many of the 1.5kw are 80mm) and if you go air cooled almost all 1.5Kw air cooled are 80mm so you need to be very careful in spindle selection.

The included power supply can NOT do AC or multi phase to the spindle so any water or air cooled spindle upgrade will require a separate VFD to drive the spindle which is an extra box and more expense.

There is zero support for controlling the spindle speed in software. This is true for the stock spindle AND if you install a separate VFD. The fox alien control pcb has no 5 or 10V output to control the vfd spindle speed and has no serial comms output either. So there is no way to interface the vfd with the fox alien control pcb. This is a real shame.

The spoil board is relatively flimsy, its not braced in the centre, and the aluminium is thin and the mdf is not that thick the result is lots of flex in the centre. The spoil board is also only bolted down on the front and back edges. There is zero support on the sides on middle and the board is made up of multiple independent "slices" not attached to each other further reducing rigidity.

The foxalien website does not yet provide a backup of the vasto usb disk

No software I know of (ugs, lightburn, gsender, candle, vcarve) comes with present configurations for the vasto at the moment

swapping from laser to spindle and back is tedious and can mess up the tramming of your spindle and you have to remember to change from laser to spindle mode and visa versa BOTH in software using gcode AND moving a switch on the control unit...

the front of the machine has two bolts in each arm of the L brackets holding the sides and front together, the rear (for no reason I can see) only has one bolt on one arm of the L bracket reducing rigidity.

there are no off-centre cams or other mechanisms to help with tramming the spindle.

there is no spindle speed display.

there are no buttons on the control box to switch the spindle on or off. (Once the spindle is switched on in gcode you can use the spindle speed potentiometer to reduce the speed to zero).

Really pleased with the machine, extremely robust, well packed and easy-to-follow instructions.

I recommend upgrading the spindle if you need to work with anything other than wood, I have the Makita trimmer installed. Have been cutting lots of aluminium and even stainless steel. Recently added the laser option, and have been using this to laser etch steel and aluminium too.

Delivery and assembly - This arrives in three large boxes and one of them is pretty heavy but overall everything is packaged extremely well. Assembly is fairly easy although you may benefit from asking someone to help you drop the X axis in place as that is the heaviest singular part. You can be up and running in under an hour and it is essentially plug and play once built.

Testing and review - I have had this machine for several months now and put it through various tests. I deliberately stuck with the 400w spindle to begin with as I wanted to see what it could do straight out of the box. I've machine wood at 1000mm/min with a depth of 6.5mm which is really impressive. I've also also machined various things out of aluminium. You can still go fast in aluminium but have to keep the depths reasonable to avoid deflection. The deflection is mainly in the spindle shaft and bit so upgrading to a router or larger spindle would eliminate most if not all of this. There is a little deflection in the bed itself, but this is easily overcome by placing a block of wood underneath.

Conclusion - It is a well thought-out machine. You can still get a lot done with this machine straight out of the box but once you upgrade the spindle, it will fly through nearly anything. Suitable for both hobbyists and professionals

I bought the FoxAlien Vasto when it was announced. I wanted to start a business and was researching CNC routers that would my needs. I have a hobby-ist CNC router but I knew I wanted something that I could rely on if I was going to start a business. I found the Vasto and it checked all the boxes.

It is a real work horse! Is is based on linear rails with leadscrews. It comes in modules that are easy to assemble. The entire machine is about 45kg (100 lbs) and is very stable. The gantry is one module that is about 20kg and adds to the stability.

I have used it on MDF, plywood, oak timber and aluminium. I cuts aluminium and oak as it was butter. It comes with 400w spindle that is very good but it has also fittings for a Makita and DeWalt routers. I have an 800w Makita that does any job a breeze!

I really like this machine and it will be used daily in my business.