Ken, you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say that the machines are that price, but that the parts are.
Sorry John.
I did misunderstand. Please forgive my ignorance. I thought you were
talking about a complete machine for that price,
Regards,
Ken
http://www.3dcadjewelery.com
Yes, direct “growth” in metal is possible, using a number of
materials, but none of these are precious metal alloys. The technical
challenge is daunting. A large part of the problem is the cost of the
process when compared to “printing” in castable resins, or resins
from which a mold can be made, or simply milling, which gives better
surfaces often, and is much faster for one-offs. For multiples, 3-D
printing is hard to beat, and they need not be multiples of the same
design. I’ve grown 50 ring models (five each of ten different
designs) in a fairly high resolution, but it’s a 14 hour run.
Wayne Emery
Nice forum, Ken, but the link above doesn’t work. If anybody wants to
visit Ken’s forum, devoted to CAD-CAM and jewelry, try
www.3dcadjewelry.com instead. There are sections devoted to various
softwares, and places to share tips and images, with people’s
various machines being ranted about (when they don’t work right) and
raved about (when they do). While there are a few forums dedicated to
this sort of thing already, they tend to be on manufacturer’s sites,
who are often tempted to exercise censorship when people complain -
there’s none of that there.
As for the preceding discussion, I’m a bit puzzled by it. Sure, any
machine is just a collection of parts, some available off the shelf,
and some that need to be fabricated, but there’s also some skill
involved in putting them all together to make something that works,
not to mention the overhead involved in setting up and running a
factory, and supporting the machine’s users. Every product I can
think of is marked up to a certain extent when value is added, or it
wouldn’t be worthwhile to produce it. Are we to apply this standard
(pay only for the value of the parts) to everything we buy? If we go
to a restaurant, do we refuse to pay more than the price of the
ingredients? If someone goes to a jeweler, should they add up the
price of the stones and metal and just pay that?
While most of us here are handy people, and relatively well-equipped
with tools, launching into the construction of a CNC milling machine
is a fairly daunting project that can be frustrating when things
don’t work out as envisioned. As I said before, when you buy a
machine like this, you’re buying more than the parts, you’re buying a
promise of some functionality. This is something you don’t get when
you build one yourself. On the other hand, it can certainly be a
learning experience. I’ve been bitten by the bug myself, and have
spent most of the last couple of months in constructing a
large-format 4-axis router. But I still don’t know if it will work
when I turn it on - that’s the risk I took on when I started. If I
win, I’ll get an interesting machine for the price of its parts (and
a lot of labor) but I could well lose and be stuck with an
interesting pile of junk. For those who are contemplating this sort
of adventure, www.cnczone.com is a good site, with contributions from
people whose levels of ability in this ranges from expert to
clueless. (I’m somewhere in the middle…)
Andrew Werby
not to mention the overhead involved in setting up and running a factory, and supporting the machine's users. Every product I can think of is marked up to a certain extent when value is added, or
No Andrew, at least as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve said a lot on
this thread, and come under the heading of “frustrated shopper”,
it’s about value. I have not the slightest problem with paying a
fair price for anything. Let’s use two machines for example though:
The Revo 540 comes in at 20 or is it $25,000? and the Tormach is
$6950. To equalize them we could put a 4th axis on the Tormach for
$1000 - very generous, and a built in computer for an even more
generous $1000, which would make the Tormach $8950. So, my
rhetorical question is, aside from the fact that the Tormach will
mill steel, titanium and even graphite and my grandkids could still
get.0001" on it with proper care, and given that none of these are
“state-of-the-art” machines to begin with (s-o-t-a nowadays is
1/millionth), what is it that makes the Revo almost triple the
price? I gather it also has Matrix - that’s $5,000. And I really
don’t think there is a reasonable answer for that question beyond,
“Cos we said so.”
Ok, it’s “optimized for jewelry”. It has several small features that
make it easy to use without tinkering. But what is it that makes it
$12,000 better? Because it sure looks like a lot less machine to
me…
Hello all,
I have been away for a while but in case Stuller carries both the
jwx-10 by Roland as well the 3design software. If you need a demo
disc or about both please feel free to contact me. Have
a Stuller day
Andy “The Tool Guy” Kroungold
Phone (800)877-7777 Ext. 4194