I have been working on my CNC journey for a while now and thought it would be a good time to take stock of where I have been and how it is going.  I have wanted a CNC machine basically for ever, but 4-5 years ago I started down the road.  

First I build a hacked up machine from old CD rom drives just to see if I could do it. That was a great learning experience but it did not result in a very functional device.  I did wire it up to a 3D pen and managed to print out some small objects along with making a few drawings on post-it notes.

Next came a XYZ da Vinci miniMaker from my wife for Christmas.  I worked with that for about a year, getting comfortable with simple cad work and learning the basics.  This is a great machine if you have no interest in electronics.  There is basically nothing you can change on the machine, it works great for what it does but you can't make it better (or worse) by tinkering.  I actually reversed engineered the protocol for communicating with the printer, but was never able to get things to a point where my code was simpler to use than XYZ's software.  Again this is a great printer if you want to make miniatures but don't know anything about computers, it does what it does well, but can't go any farther than that.

After a year with the miniMaker I picked up a Creality Ender 3 printer for a great price.  This has proven to be an excellent, and yet frustrating, little workhorse. When it works great it is very reliable and dependable and produces parts with good finish and accuracy.  When it goes bad you feel like your in an alternate universe because nothing seems to make it better.

I have made only a few modifications to my ender 3:

• Latest Marline, with manual mesh bed leveling enabled.  This is the number one upgrade everyone should make.  If you don't know about arduinos just buy a dongle from someone with the latest firmware on it. I believe TH3D sells a kit but I could be wrong on that.  Anyway this is free and you will get much better quality out of your printer over the crusty old stock firmware.
• BuildTack print sheet. I can't stress this enough, a quality print bed surface makes a big difference.  I experimented with a lot but settled on the BuildTack shetes.  Partly because they worked so good with my XYZ miniMaker and partly because they just hold up really well.  Get a thin paint spatula to go with it and throw out the scarry paint scraper, your build surface and fingers will last longer.
• Dual gear extruder, extrusion has always been my big nemesis with the ender 3, I tried several extruders but have been really happy with there dual gear extruder.  The price is right and it is quite functional and easy to install.  Use your old extruder tension spring rather than the yellow one that came with it, it is too strong.
• Octoprint, I am very happy with this piece of tech.  With a tiny bit of effort you can monitor and print from anywhere, allowing your machine to live in a closet rather than needing to be out.

I wish we could get an ender 3 style machine with a few simple upgrades, for something close to the same cost:

• Up to date firmware, come on everyone this is a no brainer.
• Simple bed leveling built in.  The miniMaker has a push button you can manually extend when leveling.  It probably cost $0.10 to add to the printer and is 90% as good as a fancy BLTouch.
• Quieter stepper drivers and fans that shut off when not in use.  This is not critical but it can make the rest of your house happier about your hobbies.
• A hot end with a captive heat break liner like on the E3D V6.  Probably the biggest failing of all Creality printers is that they run the bowden tube all the way down the hot end. This sounds great on paper but in practice you end up having to jam everything together really tightly to keep it from leaking.

The newer machines from Creality try to solve some of these problems but they spend too much time on bling (touch screens) and not enough on reliability.

Enough nonsense, the big question is how does all that relate to a CNC.  Well I'm supper happy with my home made CNC.  So far I have been able to cut out anything I can think of with only a minimal amount of effort learning any new skills I may need.  It is really a dream come true!  

However as awesome as the CNC is it is still many times more difficult to learn how to use than a 3D printer for one simple reason.  With the 3D printer I can think up an idea and start it printing from the comfort of my couch.  And in 3-10 hours I have a finished part I can inspect that cost $0.30 to print all without any oversite from me.  That allows me to rapidly iterate on ideas without worry and makes the CAD/CAM learning curve much easier to handle.

On the other hand the CNC produces parts that I'm much more eager to show off, but at a cost in both materials and time.  Quality wood can cost $30 or more for each cut, 100x more than the 3D printer, and I'm just not comfortable leaving my CNC unattended.  You don't have to watch it every moment but if something goes wrong you want to be there to turn it all off quickly before serious damage is done.  Not to mention the CNC is loud, dusty and takes up a lot of prime real-estate in your workshop.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the 3D printer is a great first step to the CNC.  It has its limitations but it is very forgiving as well.  There is a huge learning curve on all of this and taking things piecewise is the best approach.  I'm looking forward to continue pushing my CNC to see what else it can do, but if your just starting out then consider spending a few months mastering your 3D printer before going on to bigger and better things.