Has anyone looked at the Shaper Origin? I don’t think it is worth as much as it costs to the average consumer, but to someone that needs portability it might be worth it. Basically there is a screen that shows the outline to follow and then you manually move the router around to “trace” the line on the screen but there are motors that move the router to compensate for inaccuracy in “tracing” the line by hand and lifts the router up.
I have been watching videos about it today. Other than portability and space required I can’t see the advantage over a normal CNC. They say it’s better because you aren’t limited by the size but who wants to be standing there for an hour or two pushing it around when you could just be watching the machine do it for you. They are also talking like you just throw an SVG file on there and set your parameters on the screen. That would be easy if you are just cutting out pieces but what if you are doing something where you have different depths and some cuts outside the line and some inside? Are you doing all that on that little screen? Have you seen anything where they need more than one pass to cut out? Everything I have seen is in very thin material.
All fair points. I havent seen much about it. My only thought was that with my MPCNC I have to go pretty slow because the z axis is not as rigid as just holding the router right by the work piece. Pockets that take 10 minutes to cut out on my mpcnc take 2 to just hog out with the router by hand. But I am using old parts, a tall z axis, and some cracked parts that I couldn’t print replacements for over the summer.
We were all excited about it until the price ($1500 preorder $2000 retail) scared us away.
I wouldn’t blink an eye at the $2000 price tag if I had it to spend. I think it’s one of the best inventions I’ve seen in a while, possibly ever.
To just walk up to a piece of material and almost instantly cut out a perfect square or circle of any size with no setup.
I literally dreamed about this machine the night I saw it.
That being said, no, it does not take the place of a CNC router. Completely different in my mind.
It would make custom floor inlays much easier. Cut the design on your table CNC, then cut the pocket on the floor with this.
I saw it at the maker faire, It is pretty awesome. I just saw it on tested as well. They put a ton of time into R&D and even had to develop the machine to make the fiducial tape. They are the only ones with something like it so That price will probably hold for a long time, if not more if demand gets heavy. Pretty cool though.
Mine arrived a few days ago. I’m committed to finishing a new torsion-box table for the lowrider and also the larger project for which I’m using the lowrider, so I have resisted even plugging it in yet. No distractions.
I bought it because:
I am a sucker for cool tech things, a geek, and spent my career making cool tech. So professional curiosity? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Extreme accuracy, especially on small pieces.
Take the tool to the work. A whole lot of precise alignment issues we experience with a tool like lowrider just go away.
Cut on the end of your work. Various joints, inlays, etc, etc.
It does things that are unique and very useful, there is really nothing else like it.
I don’t think it’s a substitute for something like a lowrider. You’d end using a lot of their proprietary tape. Also, you are the gantry and must be involved throughout the cut. I know it’s considered bad form to leave your CNC unattended, but imagine if you had to keep one finger on your lowrider router at all times…
I would never undertake the sorts of things I do with the lowrider with the Shaper, but it does many things a more traditional CNC will never achieve.
And if you had to reach across a 36" workpiece.
Please, if you don’t mind, could you make us a feedback once you’ll have a little bit of experience using it, I’m curious to see how well this work and if it is actually useful in the end.
In my opinion so far, this is probably one of the best tools ever. Sure it is not possible to use it for 100% of our cutting needs, but just think about how many times you needed to do a simple part, then got lazy to go over all the process of 3D design, CAM, and went with an easier, ghetto solution instead of doing it properly.
If it wasn’t so expensive I would probably have bought one already. It’s not expensive regarding the tech that is inside and how well its built, but I can’t just spend 2000 buck on such tool, I havent even spent that much on my motorbike…
If I still have my wits about me when I retire, I would love to make some hacky open source software to make our own.
Do you plan to retire soon or will you live us hanging there for decades?
You look young on your profile pic and we are not ready to wait for this long.
Please drop everything you’re doing right now and start working on that immediately.
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No. Not soon. Don’t hold me to that either, I change my projects with the wind. But I can dream.
Haha, I was just kidding don’t worry 
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Sure thing.
Been a real challenge leaving it in the case for the last week while I work on other things…
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