From Zero to CNC: Our Adventure with the Genmitsu 4040-PRO MAX

Written by Paul Apel

Hello,

My name is Paul Apel. Recently, my son had expressed his desire to become a Machinist. With that being said, I thought it would be a good idea for him to have a way to practice his G-Code at home and be able to work outside of his classes to prepare himself. My interest in helping him sent me down the YouTube path of discovery. I stumbled upon a channel hosted by James Dean. This particular video was a review of the Genmitsu 4040-PRO MAX CNC Machine, 710W Trimmer & Linear Rail Driven, Enhanced XZ Axis with an accompanying giveaway. I told him in the comments that I thought this would be an excellent platform for my son to learn on and submitted my name to his drawing. Lucky ME!!!!, I won.

After a few weeks, SainSmart shipped me my prize. I must say that the marketing team was very responsive and kind during the process. On that fateful day of arrival, I was very surprised at the overall size and weight of the CNC. I unpacked the shipment and verified that everything was present. In fact, there were a couple of extra screws which I was able to use later. The directions for assembly were very straightforward and easy to follow. When it was completed, my son helped me carry it out to the workbench.

I now had a beautiful new Genmitsu 4040-PRO MAX sitting on my bench……What to do with it? I told my son he could use it to further his studies. Surprise surprise, a kid who was not really interested in doing something outside class. So I assumed the helm and started trying to figure out what could I do with it. It was just before Christmas, so my wife asked if we could make Gifts. “Of course” I said. I found some trial version CAD software to create our masterpieces.

Keep in mind, I have never used a CNC machine before, so this was the beginning of an adventure. Looking at the spoilboard, I needed to come to grips with: how was I going to clamp down the stock. The spoilboard is perforated with holes that have threaded inserts for use with the included clamps. I found that given the size and shape of the carving stock, the holes were not always in the right place when using the clamps. Also, I realized that I needed a way to square the material to the machine. I pulled out my framing square and started drawing out the gridlines. This helped, but ultimately it really was not the right answer.

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I went to the hardware store and purchased hexagonal head bolts to screw into the threaded inserts. This allowed me to square up the material to the machine from an X/Y perspective pretty much anywhere on the board.

Now that I was able to place my material in a position square to the CNC, I was off…. I began carving and neglected to set up proper dust control. WOW!, I sent wood dust all over the CNC as well as the garage in general. I whipped out the shop vac and began cleaning up the CNC and the nearby area. What I revealed was a very well carved piece of wood! What I also revealed was a lot of wood dust had settled on the rails and lead screws. I cleaned them as best I could, but realized I needed to set up a proper dust collection. I also saw that Sainsmart marketed baffles that mounted along the spoilboard to reduce/eliminate dust settling on the lead screws. I installed a dustboot and baffles. These two upgrades made an amazing difference. I highly suggest these upgrades!

The next issue I ran into was mounting the material to the spoilboard. I often found myself using the smallest piece of material to carve on. This meant I was running the mill bits over or across the work clamps. The work clamps are relatively small, this combined with the placement of the pre-threaded holes in the spoilboard sometimes limits where to place them and the material. I now use several different ways to hold the material in place based upon the project. 1) blue tape and super glue. (This works well if you don’t care about being precisely aligned because the mill is cutting things out.) 2) the clamps provided along with other scrap pieces to form a friction fit. This allows the clamps to be far from the project and sacrificial wood being near the carving in case you miscalculated where the mill is going to run. 3) Straight up clamping with the provided clamps.

I purchased the ¼” collet to use my router bits as well as being able to source other CNC bits locally. This allowed for a tremendous amount of flexibility in the bits I can use for carving.

For my practice carves, I use either foam board, or MDF. Both of these carve up pretty easily and are cheap to use for test purposes. However, I will warn you now, MDF creates a ton more dust than my dust control system can handle. Dust still goes everywhere!

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Overall, I am very happy with the Genmitsu 4040-PRO MAX CNC! This is a nice sized machine with more than adequate power to get the job done. My experience has been nothing short of stellar, with prompt responses and effective resolutions to any issues. Whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, the Genmitsu 4040-PRO MAX CNC is a worthwhile investment. It’s efficient, reliable, and backed by a company that genuinely cares about its customers. I hope my experience helps make your decision easier—you won’t regret it.

I am never satisfied, so now I am trying to figure out how to expand my use of this platform beyond wood signs. 3D? Aluminum blocks? I need to find more and more complex projects to tackle with this machine. I think my limiting factor will be my imagination and the CAD software in which I design the projects. Sainmart provides several CAD software trial licenses to experiment with. I highly suggest you try them all before committing to purchase to ensure you get the feature-rich functionality that you need and want.

Let’s go carve something!