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GADGETS AND GEAR FOR MAKERS
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Tell us about your faves: editor@makezine.com
GADGETS AND GEAR FOR MAKERS
Comgrow ROBO 3018
CNC Router Milling Machine
with Optional 10W Laser
$399 comgrow.com
For those wanting to play with a bit of CNC
at home on small projects such as PCB
making, engraving, and light milling in
soft materials, the market for tiny CNC
machines supplies many options. Most,
however, come as kits with little-to-no
additional frills. The Robo CNC from
Comgrow brings frills aplenty to the table.
It came mostly assembled, with included
items like cute little dust shields to mount
around it in order to keep your work
surface clean, and a pendant controller
that lets you to move the gantry and
spindle around and even run jobs without
having the computer there. This unit came
with an optional 10W diode laser as well
(the 48W spec in the online product listing
comes from the full draw of the laser, not
the output), which opens up even more
possibilities.
In use, I found it to be acceptably strong
for what it is. To put it simply, PCB, rubber,
wood, and plastic will be fine for milling.
Don’t expect to be chewing through even
soft metals like aluminum though.
—Caleb Kraft
Keychron Q3 QMK Custom
Mechanical Keyboard
$194 assembled with knob keychron.com
Mechanical keyboards are an interesting
topic. You’ll find people out there who are
fanatical in their selection and build of a
keyboard, and you’ll find even more people
who are lackadaisical, simply typing on
whatever happens to be available. If you
work on a computer, I highly suggest you
give a mechanical keyboard a try. The
experience of using the device you actually
touch more than anything else can be
improved, and improved a lot.
The Keychron Q3 is a kit keyboard; you
can buy a barebones version and complete
it with your own keys, or choose all the
build features you want and they’ll ship it to
you fully assembled. I picked a machined
aluminum body, no number pad, and a
nice dial for volume. My selection of keys
was the Gateron G Pro Brown, allowing for
a fantastic pressure and click under my
finger, but not a huge obnoxious clack for
every key press.
This thing feels rock solid on my desk. It
doesn’t shift under my palms, and I can’t
feel the internals flex at all. Frankly, I really
enjoy typing on this thing and I’ve never
been a mechanical keyboard fanatic. The
RGB lighting is cute but has never been
a huge selling point for me — but that
volume knob is very nice. —Caleb Kraft
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