I went into this review with two questions. First, is the Makera Z1 better value than the bigger budget CNC routers it competes with? Second, can you really run a CNC in an office or a spare room without driving everyone out of the house?
Short answers: yes, and yes, with a couple of conditions.
Is the Makera Z1 worth considering against the competition?
There’s no avoiding the obvious difference between the Z1 and my usual go-to budget choices of Two Trees and Genmitsu. Choosing the Z1 over the competition means giving up a lot of bed space. Compared to the open-frame machines at the same or less money, 200mm x 200mm definitely needs consideration.
I would argue, though, it’s the quality-of-life features that more than make up for its size (provided your projects fit inside the usable work area).
It is quiet. Quiet enough to share a room with even when cutting metal, and the enclosure keeps the mess inside (provided you have dust extraction).
Unlike a lot of people ragging on the Z1 for its size, I am no stranger to small CNC machines, which definitely matters for a review like this.
Most of what I make is not “furniture scale”, so I have purchased, built and reviewed the Sienci Mill One, a cheap T8 CNC kit, and most recently bought the Carbide 3D Nomad 3, which features in my CNC buyer’s guide. So I know full well why someone would buy a small CNC, what a small machine can do, and where the compromises usually hide.
Probably because of this history, Makera sent me the Z1 Pro and the Cyclone Dust Collector Lite to review. They have not seen this article before publishing and had no say in what it says. Of course, my links to Makera are affiliate links, so if you buy through them I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. You might even save a bit.
What the Makera Z1 is
The Z1 is Makera’s entry-level desktop CNC, sitting below the Carvera and Carvera Air. It is a fully enclosed machine with a 150W spindle, which puts it in a different class from the open-frame “3018” style routers you find at the budget end of the market.
| Makera Z1 | |
|---|---|
| Work area | 200 x 200 x 100mm |
| Spindle | 150W, up to 13,000 RPM, closed loop |
| Collets | 1/8″ as standard, plus 1/4″, 6mm, 4mm and 3mm |
| Tool changes | Quick-change (not automatic) |
| Probing | Wired probe with automatic surface levelling |
| Extras | Internal camera, chip clearing air blast, e-stop |
| Connection | USB-C, Wi-Fi, microSD |
| Price | Z1 $1,099 / £999, Z1 Pro $1,499 / £1,399 (anniversary sale until 30 September, usually $1,199 / £1,099 and $1,599 / £1,499) |
That internal camera and having Wi-Fi connectivity built-in help raise the comfort level of the machine and unlike 3D printers, those features are not by any means standard amongst CNC competitors.
Makera Z1: Setup and unboxing
Setup was a breeze. The machine is heavy enough that I was a bit silly swinging it around solo. Get a helper.
It’s compact enough that even with the vacuum unit I found space for it right on my desk. The free software does everything you will need for quite a while, plus you can progress up to commercial software and CAD CAM tools such as Fusion 360 should you need to.
Makera Z1 and Z1 Pro Differences
Mine is the Z1 Pro, versus the regular Z1, which only really makes a difference if you are going to push the limits (this is Makera’s advice, not just mine).
The Z1 Pro swaps the Acme lead screws for ball screws, adds closed-loop steppers, and raises the top travel speed from 1,200 to 2,000mm per minute. Everything I say about the workflow below, though, applies to both.
A big relief: I did not need to touch the firmware. Jan Beta had update problems on the Mac when he tried it, but mine came with the latest from the factory.
Testing the Makera Z1 Pro
I deliberately started with the easy projects before trying anything of my own and I am glad I did. As many other reviewers point out, the first example project pre-loaded on the machine is an additional aluminium hold-down clamp.
Yes, the example clamp is aluminium. The Z1 comes with an example job that requires metal. I mean, this is confidence! A top clamp, the same kind of clamp you use to hold work down. It is a good first project because you end up with something useful, and it went very well. The part came out clean other than requiring the tabs cutting off and shaving back. Fortunately, Makera include a handy little multi-tool that includes the necessary replaceable heads. It’s not so good that you would reach for it over proper tools, but it is definitely a nice touch to include it.
An engraving in two-colour plastic. Next I took an SVG of my logo and engraved it into the two-colour engraving sheet from the material pack. I could not find anywhere what that plastic actually is, and not knowing what fumes it would give off, I did not want to put the 5W diode laser anywhere near it, so I stuck to end mills. My mistake here was holding it down badly. It flopped around during the cut-out stage, damaging the result. From then on I used double-sided tape for holding down materials.
The same design in plywood. Using the same SVG on plywood came out well, if a little furry around the edges. That is normal for plywood, and a light sand or adding a finishing pass sorts it out.
Two pieces in brass. These are the ones that got the rest of the household excited. My wife was thrilled with the brass pieces and now has a growing list of ideas for her and my daughter’s craft business. Brass machines beautifully and the small scale suits the Z1 perfectly. The first was a journal clip, and the second was a stitch marker for knitters.
The two features that make it better
Why am I so buzzed about the Z1 Pro when I already have a very similar machine? I mean, the Nomad 3 is enclosed, has a similar build area, similar spindle even.
Quick-change tooling. The Z1 does not have an automatic tool changer, but swapping end mills is still quick and repeatable, and that means I will actually do tool changes rather than use a compromise bit or skip a finishing pass entirely.
Each bit gets a little plastic collar, pressed on with a supplied installer tool from the kit so it sits at a consistent height. This answers a question a few people have asked: no, there is no lock-in, you can use whatever bits you like. There are also various collet adapters. I got 3mm pre-installed, and a 6mm in my kit.
On a job that needs a roughing bit and then a fine bit, it removes most of the faff of changing tools with wrenches and then re-zeroing by hand. It checks the tool height automatically after you confirm the bit change with an on-screen dialog or the button on the front of the machine.
Surface height probing. The machine probes your stock and optionally maps its surface before cutting, then compensates for any tilt or warp. For big pockets in wood you’d barely notice. For anything delicate it is a game-changer. Think of a shallow engraving or a circuit board: the cut is a fraction of a millimetre deep, so even a slightly warped sheet means it goes too deep at one end and misses at the other. Keep in mind, V-bits make thicker or thinner lines based on a depth difference of a fraction of a mm.
I am going to do a whole separate write-up on milling PCBs, but even from the first engraves I can see the probing is what will make that work far better than I have achieved before.
Another neat thing, which I have only seen built into laser cutters before, is that you can trace the laser dot around the perimeter of your project before running the toolpath. That rescues you from accidentally running your bit right through a top clamp!
Can the Makera Z1 Pro really live on your desk?
This was a question I cared about a lot, because a CNC is only useful if you can run it when you have time, not just when nobody else is home.
Noise – Making doodads is not worth annoying the neighbours over, even for someone as anti-social as I am. It is comfortable, even when cutting metal. You can hold a conversation in the same room. On open-frame machines, an off-the-shelf trim router plus a shop vac can be deafening. This is why people usually end up in the shed.
Mess – The fully enclosed case (that actually closes, unlike the Nomad) makes a huge difference. Chips and dust stay in the machine instead of across the desk, the floor and you.
Dust extraction – You still need it. The Cyclone Dust Collector Lite does a job, but it is not powerful and it is not perfect, so expect some cleaning up between jobs. Budget for extraction of some kind rather than treating it as optional.
All this matters even more for circuit boards. If you have a blank board and no idea what it is made of, milling is safer than a laser, because it cuts the board rather than burning it. There are no fumes from the resin but it still makes fine dust, and FR-4 is mostly glass fibre, so this is where the enclosure and extraction make a health difference. I will go into that properly in the PCB write-up.
Makera Z1 vs budget CNCs?
For about half the money you can buy an open-frame router with a much bigger bed. I have reviewed several of those, including the Genmitsu 4040 Pro, the Two Trees TTC-450 Pro and the TTC6050, and if you want to cut large signs, trays or furniture parts, the Z1 is simply the wrong category of machine.
| Work area | Enclosed | Tool change | Surface probing | Price (USD, September 2026) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Makera Z1 | 200 x 200mm | Yes | Quick-change | Yes | $1,099 (Pro $1,499) |
| Genmitsu 4040 Pro | 400 x 400mm | No | Manual | No | $599, often $479 on sale |
| Two Trees TTC-450 Pro | 460 x 460mm | No | Manual | No | around $439 |
| Carbide 3D Nomad 3 | 203 x 203mm | Yes | Manual | No | $2,800 |
Where the Z1 wins is everything around workflow rather than cutting ability. It arrives ready to use, it is enclosed, it probes the material surface, tool changes are quick, and Makera Studio walks you through the job step by step. People are unfairly judging it against “Bambu Lab of CNC”, which is a stretch for any company to get to in giant leaps, but in reality they have made great progress at making this stuff easier.
On an open-frame router you do all of those yourself, if you can, and by the time you have bought an enclosure, a better spindle and a probe, the price gap narrows a lot.
The fairest comparison might be the Nomad 3, because it is the machine I would have recommended for small, enclosed, desk-friendly milling until today. The work area is almost identical, it costs $2,800, well over twice the price of the Z1 and nearly double the Pro, and I have owned one for years. It cuts well, the spindles are quite closely matched, but it has no multi-point surface probing. My main complaint, though, is the flimsy lid hinge, which is only held on with glue. Mine came off easily, as did the replacement.
The two machines are close enough in size that the spare waste boards I bought for the Nomad could go straight onto the Z1, with one catch: the Z1 needs a cutout for its tool length probe, which takes a bite out of the usable bed.
So, yes, I think the Z1 is better value, again provided your projects fit. Jewellery, charms, small brass and aluminium parts, enclosure panels, PCBs and engraving all fit comfortably. If you are not sure, measure the last five things you wanted to make.
Things to know before you buy the Makera Z1 or Z1 Pro
- The bed is small. 200 by 200mm is the limit, and workholding eats into it, as does the cutout a waste board needs for the tool length probe.
- Workholding still matters. Double-sided tape for thin sheet is your friend. The included L-shaped clamp makes it easier to line work back up, which helps for two-sided jobs, and I have a vice and the vacuum bed to try next. A vacuum bed comes in handy mainly for batches of repeated parts.
- It does metal well, but is not for steel. People have achieved steel cuts but that is not what it is for. Aluminium, brass, copper, plastics and wood are its territory. Aluminium needs shallow passes, so be patient, but it does so beautifully.
- Opening the cover does not stop a job by default. The machine chimes, but the factory setting (
stop_on_cover_open false) lets it carry on. Worth knowing before curious fingers go near it. As a “content creator” I noticed by mistake because camera. - Keep a recovery backup handy. Take a backup of the SD card. I did not need to run a firmware update, but other owners have had the software-driven update fail from a Mac. The recovery file lives in Makera’s
MakeraZ1Firmwarereleases on GitHub, and you copy it to the machine’s SD card.
Makera Z1 Review Verdict
If you want to mill small, precise parts at home out of multiple materials, or just buy a nice machine in order to learn about CNC, the Makera Z1 is an excellent choice. It raises the standard for what needs to come with or be built into a machine of this category, especially given its competitive price, and it is a genuine pleasure to use.
The Makera Z1 and Z1 Pro are in Makera’s anniversary sale until 30 September, so check the current price here.
Makera have also given me a discount code, MAKERHACKS, which works on both their US and UK stores. While the Z1 is in its launch phase, the code only applies to the Carvera and Carvera Air, so it will not take anything off the Z1 or Z1 Pro. If one of the bigger machines is the better fit for you, it will save you some money there.
- Effortless tool changing
- Built-in Wi-Fi
- Onboard camera
- Tool height measurement
- Auto material probing
- Laser project dimensions guide
- Fully enclosed and low noise
After so many machines that expect you to be far more experienced and tolerant of rough workflow, the machine capabilities combined with even this early cut of the (free) software show a lot of promise for introducing more beginners to subtractive making.
The one thing that can not be avoided with this kind of machine is size. For people who want to make larger items such as furniture or signs out of wood, you need to buy a bigger open-frame router instead.
As mentioned earlier, I am not done testing by any means. On my list is the PCB project, where the surface probing gets a proper test, and more makes in different materials, 3D engraves, STLs, and that vacuum bed. Make sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss anything!
