LowRider CNC- Full sheeter

Ok I think I see - looking at the video the table provides the guide for the X axis movement.

Is this the primary difference from the Crawlbot, in that the Crawlbot uses the workpiece as the guide, whereas the Lowrider relies on its own table?

That power rack getting any use? ;D

Well technically it should not use the table as a guide it should just roll is a straight line. The table can be used if you start crooked or something else is wrong.

My poor rackā€¦I was dedicated for 2 years only missed one day (other than the pneumonia week). I even skipped classes to workout. Pfffft not anymore this little business of mine takes up more time than full time work and full time school combined. I havenā€™t given up though, If I can get to the point of hiring an employeeā€¦

These are top on our list for when we finally get a full sheet capable CNC at our makerspace:

Any chance of a MPCNC retrofit version for those of us with full sheet sized MPCNC builds?

Iā€™m sure I could figure something out. Depending on the parts list.

@David, isnā€™t that table parametric? You could make that on the MP3DP.

Aright, alright, alrighttt!!! It looks like the Argentina debacle is behind us (for now). I will try and get a full 8ā€™x4ā€™ test cut in and release some parts!!!

I think I will mark some of them with the website. Would it be best to emboss or deboss the letters? When working with an .stl file you can easily extrude extra things on it correct, but cutting features off does not work? So I should have the letters stick out so they canā€™t be cut off and if they get covered it would leave an obvious bump, right?

I am pretty happy I can release more details now.

Iā€™d say either would be trivial for someone dedicated. Hate to say it, but DRM works about as well in physical objects as it does in software: it only causes a problem for people trying to legitimately modify it. Iā€™d say the best defense would be to find a business model that can cope with it.

Out of curiousity, is this your day job? Or more of a hobby income? That should probably influence how you go about it.

Fulltime. Most of the income comes from the hardware not the plastic. I am assuming because most people find this site from thingiverse that most have a printer.

Ah. That does make getting it right a bit more critical. My experience in software has largely been that free or free-adjacent is a hard business model. The ones that make it tend to have some sort of predatory ā€œfreemiumā€ setup.

Have you considered doing a kickstarter? It seems like one of the better options for funding a largely free project like this oneā€¦

Sorry if this is unwanted adviceā€¦ I really want you to succeed and I think you have real talent and a great design. Sadly thatā€™s not enough to ensure financial success.

I do appreciate the conversation. We might actually figure it out, never know.

I have some experience with kickstarter. I am very intimidated by it for many many reasons. I was working at robo3d after their kickstarter had ended I think about 6 months after. Pretty sure I started a few days before the first shipment came in from China. A few shipments later I then went to china and tried to gets hands on and fix some issues. I learned sooooo much.

Kickstarter for this type of thing would be to buy me molds. Injection molding molds, $10k-$100k each. The original mpcnc parts were designed for molding, kickstarter was my plan. All parts were designed so 1 would fit all 4 sides to minimize the total number of molds. and I had plans to make some of them even easier to mold if I had a successful kickstarter. This made for kinda compromised parts, easy to mold but not as strong as they could be. Which I figured I could combat with more rigid plastic.

Now the biggest issues. First off an instant swarm of inexperienced users and an instant demand to hire tech support staff, $$. Second, any revision cost a lot of money, mold revisions about $10k and then all the lost parts that have been revised, $$. Mass production slows development. Large shipments and a building to house them in, at least initially, $$. Not even getting into the problems on the other side of the oceanā€¦

At his point I feel I could make a great MPCNC mass produced kit (I do want to make a few revisions), but if the crawlbot has only sold <30 units the LowRider probably isnā€™t the machine to try and go full hog with.

Fair enough on the kickstarter thingā€¦ Though I think you could still use it for its original intended purpose ā€“ funding creative projects in a non-transactional way. Maybe offer beta access as the rewards?

Another option is to have tiered productionā€¦ Maybe have a premium model that costs money, or or sell assembled versions. This could work especially well if you did this with welded tables, since thatā€™s out of reach for most DIYers. Or maybe use it as a springboard to custom design work and use it primarily as a demonstration of skill (this is the usual path for open source software authors).

And of course thereā€™s the option of closing off access and selling everything directly. Youā€™ll get a lot of flak for it (see MakerBot), but you can also make a decent income (see MakerBot again).

HAHA makerbot poor guys.

Tiered production is a great idea. That is how I was going to start buying molds. There are a lot of pieces I could use on both machines so one mold could serve a few purposes. assembly is anther good one, as long as it fits in a flat rate box.

I have told a few friends about projects like Maslow and Lowrider, and one or two have seen the potential to do digital fabrication at furniture scale and got quite excited - one person I know has signed up to the Maslow kickstarter, even though heā€™s never done anything like this before.

For me the potential of the Lowrider is the price and some of the other values it shares with the MPCNC.

I rate Brook Drumm as an entrepreneur, but he has hit the wrong notes for me with the Crawlbot. History is littered with people who have grossly underpriced their kickstarter projects and failed to scale, however, $3K is too much to be ground-breaking. The Mac only thing also sends completely the wrong message - that itā€™s half baked.

Mac only? Wow, that kinda sucks. Most of the software that is free to use in this Maker arena works best on PC and the Mac side is usually behind if it works at all.

Too bad hobby stores are virtually extinctā€¦ This kit would be perfect for retail. Maybe someone has come up with some sort of alternate shipping startup to make this affordable?

Some of the kits going into south america go to a shipper in Florida. that shipper then takes them south and delivers them somehow. I thought it was odd that so many boxes were going to Florida then I did some google-fu and found it was some sort of bulk shipper. I have no idea how they handle import taxes but the buyer only ends up paying me for US shipping.

And just to emphasize that shipping comment. I have sold things online since the first days of ebay. Shipping has never been easy online ever. It is stupidly expensive. If any of you have any pull at any company that deals with shipping there is a very very easy way to bring in a ton of money. All shipping companies charge for plugins to popular eCommerce software. WTF? They are going to make money of of every single label printed why charge us to do that? So I have used Paypal since the beginning as they had the easiest USPS interface. Then some companies got a bit cheaper to use, then came the USPS flat rate box. No company can even get in the ballpark of price for this thing. Internationally it is at least half the price of every single carrier I have ever checked. Plus using anyone else takes a ton on time time to import the address one at a time, god forbid it doesnā€™t like the address then you have to send emails back and forth to the customer to correctly ship it.

Now that I use shopify USPS plugin is still free, all the others are at least $80 a year, but the USPS service verifies the address before it takes the money.

Yeah, they all seem pretty content with their inefficiency. Amazon is going to eat their lunch soon though. Not that theyā€™ll me any more benevolent.

Iā€™ve been reading about that. Amazon is soo screwed. As soon as that changes I think everyone will understand shipping is not free. What are they spending/loosing, b/millions per quarter on ā€œfreeā€ shipping. That is insane to me. How would anyone invest in that business model. They must be pitching it as ā€œwe will destroy all other online companies and then start charging double for shipping when we are the only ones leftā€. Amazon want 10-12% to sell on there store, with the stipulation you can not sell anywhere else for cheaper, and 90 no questions asked return policy. They hold your money for 90 days. crazy. I understand my sales would go up using them but I donā€™t it is worth it.