Ian Barley
Member
- Messages
- 562
Haven't been here for a while - hello all.
I can maybe add a bit here. I am now running 2 CNC machines (1100mm X 600mm) - Derek and Clive. I purchased the first about a year ago and the second about 6 months after. If I had to rebuild my workshop from scratch tomorrow they would be the first machines I purchased.
But! - there is a very very steep learning curve. If you are intending to make money from a machine like this it is no more powerful than any other machine as a business tool. You would not expect a tablesaw to automatically generate money but would know that you need a design to produce using that table saw. Same with a CNC. If you can buy one for a couple of thousand dollars and turn out stuff based on other peoples designs then so can three other guys that live on your street - no money to be made there. You have to have something purchaseworthy to make from it and a venue of some sort to sell it at.
It has taken me a year to get all of my patterns "cnc'ed" in a basic form. I am now going back to them and enhancing the code so that I can get best quality, performance and speed. Even in the basic format though the improvements in speed and quality are amazing. I have been making my proiducts for nearly 15 years now and this last year is the first time that my ability to produce them has (occasionally) exceeded my ability to sell them. For me it has been a game changing technology. But it is not a game making technology. You have to have a game first and the CNC will make you better at playing it.
As Carol has pointed out, don't underestimate workholding. I have spent about 5 times as much on vacuum setup as I estimated and now know more about the properties of dirfferent grades of foam tape than I imagined there was to know.
And don't underestimate tooling. Getting a number wrong or missing out a minus sign can snap a $30 router bit quicker than you can react. In the beginning I sometimes destroyed 2 or 3 cutters in quick succession. And don't imagine that you won't because your cleverer than me. None of us has that much practice at imagining 3 dimensional geometry in negative space and the practice can be pretty frustrating.
All that said, it is a fascinating technology to understand and great fun - if you have the right kind of mind to enjoy the process.
I can maybe add a bit here. I am now running 2 CNC machines (1100mm X 600mm) - Derek and Clive. I purchased the first about a year ago and the second about 6 months after. If I had to rebuild my workshop from scratch tomorrow they would be the first machines I purchased.
But! - there is a very very steep learning curve. If you are intending to make money from a machine like this it is no more powerful than any other machine as a business tool. You would not expect a tablesaw to automatically generate money but would know that you need a design to produce using that table saw. Same with a CNC. If you can buy one for a couple of thousand dollars and turn out stuff based on other peoples designs then so can three other guys that live on your street - no money to be made there. You have to have something purchaseworthy to make from it and a venue of some sort to sell it at.
It has taken me a year to get all of my patterns "cnc'ed" in a basic form. I am now going back to them and enhancing the code so that I can get best quality, performance and speed. Even in the basic format though the improvements in speed and quality are amazing. I have been making my proiducts for nearly 15 years now and this last year is the first time that my ability to produce them has (occasionally) exceeded my ability to sell them. For me it has been a game changing technology. But it is not a game making technology. You have to have a game first and the CNC will make you better at playing it.
As Carol has pointed out, don't underestimate workholding. I have spent about 5 times as much on vacuum setup as I estimated and now know more about the properties of dirfferent grades of foam tape than I imagined there was to know.
And don't underestimate tooling. Getting a number wrong or missing out a minus sign can snap a $30 router bit quicker than you can react. In the beginning I sometimes destroyed 2 or 3 cutters in quick succession. And don't imagine that you won't because your cleverer than me. None of us has that much practice at imagining 3 dimensional geometry in negative space and the practice can be pretty frustrating.
All that said, it is a fascinating technology to understand and great fun - if you have the right kind of mind to enjoy the process.
