I'd like to know if anyone has production machines or semi production machines, like CNC mills and lathes, screw machines, second op lathes, lathes, milling machines, punch presses, plastic molding presses (what types?), spring benders, and any other machines that might be of use, and what are the specifications of those machines.

I'd also like to know what people would accept as an hourly rate for those machines and labor rate for work on those machines, for projects related to building reprap like machine parts. Also, while your at it, you might want to tell us what your rates are for making other stuff not related to repraps, in case anyone is interested.

While we are at it, we might as well list our abilities as well, and what we'd charge for that as well, both reprap related and not.

I'll start. I've got no machines. I do mechanical design, but I'm extremely busy with my own machine as well as my customers work, so I can't do much for others. For non-related work, my rates are $55 an hour. I've only recently started getting enough work and the higher rate. This machine design is taking up a lot of my time though, preventing me from working for my customers as many hours as I'd like.

I'd like to reduce my work load on this machine, find others to help me with it. My design goals are to be super cheap, not to be able to produce it self. I'd like to reduce costs by producing parts in production, and we'll make those parts available to everyone.

I'm designing a machine that'll be capable of 3D milling, 3D printing, 3D scanning, 3D EDM (yuck), and electronic assembly and lab work, control via Internet, and various other things, even wire EDM with a wire attachment and water filter, deionizer and pump. This machine will have resolution in the 0.0001 inch range (0.0025 mm I think), speed probably 200 inches per minute (500 cm per minute), force of 80 lbs (40 kg). I believe this will be enough for small milling cutters. Expected cost per machine will be probably around $200 each. Expected initial costs (not counting labor) will be around $10,000, maybe a little more.

While not specifically designed to produce itself, it will be able to produce most of the components to produce tools which machines like punch presses and plastic presses could use to produce it's parts.

Tony

Also, if anyone is interested in investing,providing funds to pay for tooling costs, making production tools and molds for the parts we need, let us know. We could estimate a pay back plan, to pay back 5 times as much or so as the initial investment or so, if that helps. For example, if we make a mold capable of 500,000 parts, and the mold costs us $5,000 to make, we could pay the person who put in the $5,000 for the mold $0.05 per part, $0.05 x 500,000 = $25,000. I don't know if that'd motivate anyone, but maybe.

Personally, I'm not interested in personal profit. Rather, my interest is in helping mankind. I know many others are interested in helping mankind as well.

Tony

---

Creating the society of the future
[conceivia.com]

Personally, I'm in it neither for profit nor charity, but just because this is really fun.

I'm a software engineer by trade, budding electrical engineer, but not so great on the mechanical stuff just yet--I was hoping to use the RepRap as a platform to learn a bit more about the latter two and as an novel target for software development efforts. All you people with full-blown machine shops (it seems) make me kinda jealous.

Hello,

I have the following:

Lathes:
3.5x17 Sherline
10x30 Pratt & Whitney
13x40 South Bend

Milling Machines:
Model 2000 Sherline Mill
Hardinge Horizontal TM Mill

Shaper:
South Bend 7"

Band Saw:
7x12" TurnPro

Drill Press:
Baby Camelback of unknown origin. (Needs motor hooked up.)

At the moment, I am making machined parts for the extruder. My pricing would depend on the job as I don't have an hourly rate and machining is not my full time job. My machine shop is mainly for home repairs and "side jobs."

My full-time job is as a web programmer; however, I am able to program in C and a little C++, as well. I also have a background as an open-source developer.

I also have considerable experience in auto repair as I have done welding, body work, engine re-building, etc.

Regards,

Brian

Greetings all,

I have the following machine tools:

Bridgeport Mill:
Old round ram model, '50's vintage, J1 head, small table,
(ways, screws are somewhat worn, but it has a 2-axis DRO that reads to 0.0001")

Southbend Heavy 10 lathe:
10" swing, x ~30", quick-change gears, 5C collets, taper jig.

Lathemaster 9"x30" lathe (Chuck only, candidate for CNC?)

Rockwell model 14 bandsaw (Set up for wood, plastics, Al, not steel.)

Grinder, air compressor, misc. tooling for the above (though never enough....)

MAPP/Oxy torch (just got)

XY compound table (with steppers fitted, becoming my repStrap.)



Electronics:

Tek #2465 scope (300 MHz, dual trace)

Weller temp. controlled iron

3M ESD mat & strap (cast off from work)

Hot-tweezer wire stripper (for teflon insulation.)


I'm in the Boston MA, USA area.
(Should we start a second map, annotate the current one, or not bother?)


I'm not a professional machinist, it's just a hobby. (I do embedded software and a little electronics professionally, and I have some experience with mechanical design.)

I'm not looking to go into heavy production. There are insurance and zoning issues with that that I'd just as soon not hassle with. Though (depending on time, circumstances), I might make short runs of reprap parts of particular interest (e.g. may host a local extruder-building party in the near future.)
I would be interested in barter, or otherwise swapping know-how/effort to advance reprap and similar projects. Ditto group buys, if the shipping doesn't eat up any savings from quantity purchases.

Best Regards,

-- Larry

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2008 01:00PM by Larry Pfeffer.

Hehe,

This is turning out to be a fun post...didn't think it was gonna be worthy anything when I first started reading it...here goes!

My list is short but growing:

1 (sorta-functional) McWire RepStrap with a 150x115x120 mm build volume and something like +- 0.01 resolution. (resolution getting better as I'm replacing my hose motor couplings with aluminum ones!)
1 Drill press (12" Ryobi)
1 Bench Grinder
1 Vintage Hardinge Cataract Bench Lath (currently in pieces and lacking a back plate but becoming functional soon!)

Other random hand tools and sundry.

I don't do contract work as I lack tooling and confidence. :-) I'm a Mechanical Engineering student so my free time varies. I can program some in c/c++, python, vba, and matlab. I'm good with SolidWorks and AutoCAD but I absolutely hate AOI.

Demented

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2008 07:11PM by Demented Chihuahua.

There's a laser cutting service that charges $0.15 to $0.50 for various plastics 1/8 to 1/4 inch. I think it is $30 minimum. I found this in another post, but I can't find it at the moment.
[www.customlasercutting.com]

I've searched quite hard for gears, and oddly this is around the best price you can get on gears.

A 8 pitch 20 tooth gear .795 pitch diameter 14.5 pitch angle - comes to 4.685 cut inches, at $.40 (1/4") comes to $1.875 cut cost. Material cost around $0.20 (including scrap). Makes the gear just over $2.

'Course, one needs a CAD file for gears, which I've got. I don't know if it is exactly right though, might be bad, but it looks ok. It is in Solidworks 2007. If someone wants a gear file, need to know the file format, number of teeth, pitch diameter, and angle of pitch. Or I can give out the formulas, if someone wants to make a file for other CAD programs.

Good to see some people posting. Sounds like only mechanical machines so far, except for a RepStrap. Some useful skills listed so far though, that's great.

So often on forums I've seen people who talk like they are interested in doing things, but seem to be all talk and no action. I believe they are truly interested, but they feel like the other people on the forums are strangers. Text only communication doesn't do much to make people feel like friends. When people don't feel like they know each other, they don't help each other. I believe in trying to establish voice communication as much as possible.

Nice to see some people giving out this sort of information.

Tony

Techshop is a place that has machines that people can use. My friend tells me it costs $50 a month for membership, and then you can use their machines.

Here's the kind of equipment they have.
[techshop.ws]

[techshop.ws]
Menlo Park, CA
Portland, OR
Durham, NC

It says "The cities in which TechShop locations are currently being built include San Francisco CA, Sunnyvale CA, Marin CA, Sacramento CA, Los Angeles CA, San Diego CA, Portland OR, Seattle WA, Austin TX, Orlando FL, and Durham NC."

Tony