How many on earth can build those instruments from scratch ? Even one of those instruments? What percentage of the global population?
A reasonable fraction of machinists could do many of those projects. But it takes forever. You're looking at the hobbyist work of someone who did this as a career.
I like the medium sized milling machine. That's good for parts in the 10cm range. Most mills are either much larger, much smaller, or have poor rigidity.[1]
Those are neat. I'd love something in that form factor but CNC controlled, but I also know that once you have that you need to put it to work otherwise it's wasted. And I don't have any real reason just naked greed to have a machine shop at my disposal again. I'm making a bunch of brackets using hand tools just now, it is infuriatingly slow, so I guess I'm more receptive than normal to stuff like this.
Look at the Carbide 3D support structure. Skinny little supports, probably aluminum. If that could hold a tolerance of 0.001in cutting steel I'd be surprised. Now look at the cast-iron frame of the machine van Vark uses, and the size of the slides. Rigidity requires a bulky machine. That's needed for those beautiful smooth finishes.
Haas, which is a serious milling machine manufacturer, sells one of those little desktop things for training use. They rate it for machining plastics and machineable wax only. The Haas mills for metal start around US$40,000, require a serious concrete floor, and have serious coolant and chip removal capabilities.
My toy in Canada was an old Excello, it was roughly the same as a Bridgeport from the 70's, great machine but not practical for 'home' use. I agree that for serious work you need something solid, but then again, at that price I don't think it would be realistic to expect that degree of stability, this clearly looks to be designed for very light duty, steppers not servos, little belts driving the spindle, lots of aluminum.
I also had a big Cincinatti wheel mill, that thing was stable. And so heavy that we never even bothered bolting it to the floor.
Comments
A reasonable fraction of machinists could do many of those projects. But it takes forever. You're looking at the hobbyist work of someone who did this as a career.
I like the medium sized milling machine. That's good for parts in the 10cm range. Most mills are either much larger, much smaller, or have poor rigidity.[1]
[1] https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/machinery-tools-supplies/...
Those are neat. I'd love something in that form factor but CNC controlled, but I also know that once you have that you need to put it to work otherwise it's wasted. And I don't have any real reason just naked greed to have a machine shop at my disposal again. I'm making a bunch of brackets using hand tools just now, it is infuriatingly slow, so I guess I'm more receptive than normal to stuff like this.
(ob. discl., I work for Carbide 3D)
The Carbide 3D Nomad 3 (and its competitors) are pretty much that. We've had some amazing projects, including some watches.
Look at the Carbide 3D support structure. Skinny little supports, probably aluminum. If that could hold a tolerance of 0.001in cutting steel I'd be surprised. Now look at the cast-iron frame of the machine van Vark uses, and the size of the slides. Rigidity requires a bulky machine. That's needed for those beautiful smooth finishes.
Haas, which is a serious milling machine manufacturer, sells one of those little desktop things for training use. They rate it for machining plastics and machineable wax only. The Haas mills for metal start around US$40,000, require a serious concrete floor, and have serious coolant and chip removal capabilities.
My toy in Canada was an old Excello, it was roughly the same as a Bridgeport from the 70's, great machine but not practical for 'home' use. I agree that for serious work you need something solid, but then again, at that price I don't think it would be realistic to expect that degree of stability, this clearly looks to be designed for very light duty, steppers not servos, little belts driving the spindle, lots of aluminum.
I also had a big Cincinatti wheel mill, that thing was stable. And so heavy that we never even bothered bolting it to the floor.
That looks very nice. Now for a good excuse to buy one :)