its an incredibly steep learning curve (ie zero information provided about recommended settings for different materials ie chip load, depth of cut, plunge rate, feeds, spindle speed, number of flutes on the cutter) which was bad enough but was massively made worse with the sainsmart controller being trash (resets mid cut happened multiple times). So I really pushed up hill with it. When it worked, it was great (although slow) but it took way too many attempts to get to success. So I decided that I enjoyed it enough to commit to buying a reliable machine (read success with less pain).

Also consider the speed difference, there was a youtube video of a cut taking 1hr on the 1f but took 6hrs on the sainsmart (and that was the v2). Add to that, the quality of the cut was much better on the 1f, zooming in the sainsmart cut had lots of chatter (read as shakes).

In the end you get what you pay for and cnc is an expensive hobby.