Saw the post about the bottle opener and the one about the wallet and thought why not put that style of bottle opener in the wallet?
Trying to keep it simple. This is going to be my first (small) mass produced item. It's turned into a crazy animal that I spend way too much time on. Crazy how even simple things take so much time. I think I knocked out the first rough prototype in 3 hours on the mill just freelancing it, but since then, drawn multiple cad files, 3d prints, re-machining previous models, searching for pieces, sketching designs. Takes up a lot of free time lately for something I thought was 'simple' haha.
Great choice, that I think you will be really happy with looking back. Looks like you have already decided to, but that 2nd tooling arm receptical for rests and what not is the way to go.
Interesting. I'm kinda on the other side of the fence, would like to get into CNC plasma work, but don't have the space. Is the small scale plasma market just not there anymore? I could see where the low cost of entry and relatively low cost of operation tooling and knowledge could create lots of competition.
Yea, I had originally cut pieces for a single box, but looked at more designs that had multiple arms and that seems like the way to go. Long way to go, but I think it will be worth it. I think I'm going to drill all the holes and bolt everything together and then finish machine the outside since it's just cosmetic.
I like CNC plasma. It's a handy tool. It's still pretty cool to have parts come off the table that you thought up and drew and cut. Never stops amazing me. If I really pounded pavement, I could get more work for it. I need to just start cutting more stuff and throwing it up for sale. My heart has always been in machining though and have wanted to learn CNC machining since the day I bought my first lathe. Most of my ideas that I want to build are machining related. I'm big into bicycles and would love to start some simple stuff like sprockets and stems, gun work, tools and misc stuff like that.
The plasma is rad, but in reality, I could easily live without a 4x8 table. I could make use of a 2x2 or a 2x4 for personal stuff. It seriously is a lifesaver though on brackets, signs, gussets, mounts, anything you can think of. 90% of my work is small (well, small enough to fit, plus you can index if you really need to). Those 1/4" stool legs were decent size and still only 20" overall. The biggest downside and hinderance of the plasma is material handling. I hate working with sheets and plate in my garage. I usually end up getting everything sheared at the supplier just to make it manageable. If I had a big shop or rented space and had a forklift and storage racks, no doubt I'd make more use of the big plasma. The reality of it though is it takes up a lot of space I don't utilize. There's no way in hell I'm loading a 4x8 sheet of 1/2" solo. Moving the machine in might be a PITA but I think it will be vastly better suited to my garage setup. Plus, I have a phase converter, air, beefy concrete and everything else to support a CNC. I only *may* upgrade to something like a Phase Perfect if needed.
I'm really leaning towards buying a mill if I can get funds together. Technically, although quite a bit slower, I could mill out similar brackets I would cut on the plasma now for most stuff that would fit. I may also end up scratch or mostly scratch building a small table with like a PM45, since I will most likely sell the 85 with the 4x8 since I would probably have a hard time selling without the cutter. I would definitely still have use for a plasma, but paying full pop for a Torchmate or something is stupid. Pretty sure courtjester has plans I could buy off of him
Looking at Robodrills and other smaller envelope machines, altough, I did see a Mazak I really like, even though it's like looking at Ferraris when I should probably buy a Ford truck.
