Printable View
Not to start another hate fest like the last thread, but can some of our machinist friends take a look at this site and give some options with regards to one off parts and stuff like cocker bodies.
http://carbide3d.com
Even when willing to pay, I cannot seem to find a shop/person willing to run stuff for me.
it will lack a significant amount of rigidity at the tool and spindle to do any even moderately heavy work, and the fixturing could be an issue as well, how would you plan on holding stuff to actually work on it?
personally I would say do not waste your money if you plan on using that for paintball stuff
Yeah, have to agree with Panda on this one. I don't see that being particularly useful for larger aluminum stuff. Looks more geared for wood and plastics.
To machinist bros in here; we know one-offs are expensive and people don't really want to do them just due to fixturing alone, let alone other nightmares; knee mills are often not feasible for a variety of reasons (ex: some of us still live in apartments, small houses and other inaccessible and or non-permanent situations). I think people are looking for any leads on small machines that would work well enough for one-offs, even if it requires a decent chunk of elbow grease to shine up?
Kind of looking at you, Nicad and Ydna...
That's the thing... I know one offs are expensive. I know I'm going to pay 300+ to cosmetic mill a body, my design, your code/programming...and I'm ok with that. But pretty much nobody familiar with paintball is doing it anymore... So I'm left looking at options that aren't 5-10k for a machine used like 2x a year.
Everyone in the machine game paintball wise is only doing production run stuff it seems.
If you're okay with making it a little project (tbh if I had the space I'd look into doing it) it seems you could convert a Seig X3 into a pretty decent 3 axis machine.
http://makezine.com/projects/cnc-min...-kit-hardware/
http://www.superx3.com/
Someone else would have to give you more details though, I don't know much about it.
I have seen some impressive work on a taig mill.
http://www.taigtools.com/cmill.html
it costs a great deal of money to own and operate decent equipment, and just as much (usually more) to actually tool all of that equipment up; holders, tools, fixtures etc.
it would honestly be more cost effective for you to just save up a decent chunk of change and let a professional shop do the work you want
if you had several projects lined up and were looking to get more involved in manufacturing then I would suggest looking for entry level equipment, if you are looking to go CNC from the outset I have heard decent things about tormach PCNC's
http://www.tormach.com/product_pcnc_main.html
I was actually looking at them myself a few years ago when I was still a little more wet behind the ears and did not have the job and access to the equipment that I do now.
but like I said
whatever you pay for a machine, at least double that cost and that will give you a little more real number after tooling and fixtures. That is also just for the machine and tools, you still need software and training to be relatively productive with your new equipment.
everything good is expensive in this trade for a reason
for what it sounds like you want done I would say it is more realistic to simply work with a shop to get the mill work done.
and sadly I think $300 dollars is probably a tad on the low end of what you would likely end up paying, I would love to be proven wrong for your sake though
Hmmmm well what would you think is a realistic number in terms of a one off 'cocker/evil Ehm body then... I agree 100% that i would far rather have a reputable and skilled machinist do my project. But as stated they are super few and far between.
I mean really as stated I'm not averse to paying a shop, but finding someone that knows paintball and knows x axis from y is getting into unicorn territory these days.
Yeah I looked at all those options now (thanks for fair and reasonable responses) but I cannot rightly justify a 9k machine plus tooling to do a body here and there... I'd never pay off the tooling, let alone machine. The mill I linked was 2500 much like the other two suggestions, maybe just with less volume.
Id just really like to see offering milling again in a non production setting... Take a page out of Palmers book... Custom still means something.
I love that Simon truly brought small run/almost niche (pun intended) markers back to life singlehandedly. In fact I blame him for my rekindled obsession with custom guns. But I can almost guarantee that with AKA and Cockers and really mags getting a late game resurgence, that I am not the only person with a steady job and a 'vision' for what I want in my hands on the field.
I tried Cliff on Nation as suggested elsewhere, but he said not now and I don't know when.... And People have had guns at Destructive for literally 3+ years without even an update on progress.
Not trying to be soapboxxy. Sorry. Just miss the days when shops would take custom projects... I'm not begrudging tooling and maintenance costs. I just wish there was someone out there who knew paintball and would even entertain it anymore.
If you have an evil ehm extrusion I'd trust a china RP shop to do the aesthetics
never china
Never china, but no real alternatives :(
is it really that hard to find a shop now?
I've tried 3-4 reputable sources, yes. Anyone that had a reputation for it has either stopped to do more 'paying' stuff, or is too busy and won't even entertain new projects or has literally a 3+ year back log.
You can have a lot of fun with something like a Sherline or Seig or Taig or other little desktop mill. You'll spend weeks if not months trying to figure out how it works. And then weeks if not months on a specific project. But then you'll be able to do other stuff.
If you only wanna take existing bodies and mod them to look cool, these machines are perfectly able. You will not have luck machining a body from billet however.
I'd budget $2000-3000 for a CNC'd desktop mill and all the related equipment/tooling you'd need, unless you find some good deals.
Ultimately, you can also sometimes find a good knee mill for that price: but it won't be CNC.
You can also look at some DIY gantry mills, something with some rigidity but otherwise simple enough to fabricate, and with enough time you can shave away a body to look nice.
I have a Sherline Mill and Lathe. The Mill is adequate for quite a bit of the parts you would be doing for paintball, but I find the Lathe to be undersized by a good bit, mostly due to the size of the chuck.
The Taig might be big enough. To do a gun body the Sherline would be just big enough. It is rigid enough and has really decent power. I have built lots of parts on them, but anything over a bolt in OD on the lathe is a pain in my backside.
Everything to do with CNC is expensive (he says looking at a quote for a new CNC mill that is nearly $100,000!)
Back in 2000 (so 14 years ago) I did a one off CNC gun body for a friend that costed out at around $3,000 of work. That included the CAD and programming, but not the machine time. It was run on an X-Mag blank on AGDE's machine so they didn't charge the machine time as they were selling the gun, and the guy buying it was a good customer of theirs and friend of mine.
The going rate for CAD for a paintball gun body design goes from anywhere from $500-$15,000 depending on who it is doing the work and who they are charging. That's just the CAD. Back in the early 2000's when I was doing Intimidators I would charge $2,000-$3,000 for a new cosmetic gun design.
Any time I have used someone else's CAD (no disrespect meant) it's been an issue and I have had to fix things. Typically if you aren't doing the checking until the first one is cut you have wasted your programming time and your machine time if something is wrong, and your first body. Maybe a fixture too. So you check it up front the best you can, but that takes hours of work. It's a trade off.
A small custom shop that is good enough to do what you need on a one off body is going to be $125+ an hour. Maybe significantly more. Not unusual for a great shop with advanced equipment to want significantly more. I personally would never touch a project on a one off body that I couldn't replace.
Any time I have cut even a custom engraved body, it's never taken me less than 4-5 hours. That's programming, set up, toolpath verification in air, running on a scrap body (if possible) running slow on the actual body with offsets so to not fuck it up, and then adjusting depth to cut it nicely, sometimes running the engraving 3-4 times to get it perfect. On several occasions with 4th axis or even 5 axis engraving I have screwed up slightly, and enough that it scrapped a body :(
That's on gun bodies I designed, I made, and I have fixtures for.
I can't charge for that as it's just too expensive, so I only ever do it for friends or as a gift, and I pretty much regret it every time I take on such a project. It's always more of an issue than it should be.
And then there is the opportunity cost of not working on a production item, and since the mill is running non stop right now (hence why I have quotes for more machines) the cost of lost production as I am taking the time to make a one off.
Obviously the point of the machines, and the software etc. is to run a viable business from them.
I have many people ask me to run "one off's" or something custom or to "just go wild and do whatever you want" on a single body, and the reality is after costing it out and working out the value to the company, if I am not charging around $15,000 for such a project it simply doesn't make sense to take it on, and I should be working on my other production items instead.
That sounds like an insane number, and it is, but then I look around at the $500,000 I have invested in what I am doing here, and the importance of keeping it all going, the insane costs of having a business and overheads, and that is the reality of a choice to do a one off instead of to run production, and to work on more products that I can realistically sell 100+ of.
There are people that will charge you far less, and do a great job, but they are typically doing it for fun, on someone else's equipment and not running it as their full time job/business.
As much as I would love to run more one off jobs or individual custom jobs, I know that I couldn't survive as a business based upon what the market would pay for the work.
And that is why you can't/don't find many companies willing to take on the jobs.
Great post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon
I would love to see more mcgyvered solutions for the diy'er, things not necessarily up to the standard of professional machinists but enough to get the job done for a hobbyist. I know they exist, even if they might be multiple year projects.
It'd be a bummer if we weren't capable of thinking in terms of "It's not ideal but we can figure out how to make it work".
Side note: if you go china, don't trust them with your body. Model the extrusion and let them do it from the start, that way when they mess up you're not out of your extrusion.
There is pretty much every level of DIY CNC option out there. With places like Techshop, you could learn and use theirs, or use theirs to make the solid components for your own. I don't do electronics very heavily, but with Arduino and Pi controllers out there, you have that portion covered too.
Then there is the hobby sized stuff. You can start with an X2 manual machine and CNC that out. I bought a MAXNC machine that has less Z than an X2, but more Y, which is what I needed. It is small and very low on power, so things take forever compared to big boy machines. But, I have time most days when I get home and on the weekends to get the machine going and then I can pretty much walk away. I did a 9 hour cut over two weekday evenings, no sweat. Would have taken a HAAS under an hour probably, but I don't have one of those. The MAXNC is in my garage and always available to me.
No matter what, you have to learn how to use them. That was the hardest part for me. I know CAD, and do that professionally, and I also know manual machining. Learning the CAM/CNC side was frustrating for a little while because I had to configure the machine and the only way I knew it was right was to cut a part, which I couldn't do yet because I wasn't there with the CAM yet. Learned the CAM, and then learned that the settings I was using for speeds/feeds were way too high. Moving is not the same as cutting.
Now, I'm cutting things, but very slow. Doesn't really matter though because it is personal stuff and has no deadline. Learning was half the frustration, but also half the reason why I got the stuff instead of trying to find somebody who could make it for me.
EDIT: And holy ish! For $2400, there are many used options that are better. I got my little MAXNC and an XP machine to run MACH3 for $1000 shipped on ebay. I've also seen small-ish CNC mills on craigslist, but the timing wasn't right. Do searches on ebay 'by distance' and just type "CNC mill"
See, I had no idea this existed. THIS IS AWESOME.Quote:
Originally Posted by desertT1
Do you have any suggestions for learning CAM/g-code? Are there resources out there you've heard good things about or had good experience with?
How about things to look out for when buying equipment? Any recommendations for smaller CNC machines?
Googling around I found this resource:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/teache...machining.html
And you're still worlds ahead of some places/companies that won't run a good idea if they don't think they'll sell 50k of them. :evilgrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon
what Simon said
the vast majority of paintball players simply cannot afford custom work at a professional level, and frankly most of them would be highly confused as to why it costs what it does
the custom work that I do is either for myself or friends, or for projects that really get stuck in my head that I would get personal satisfaction out of completing
Don't forget community college classes, too... When I was on my brief foray into robotics and PLC programming the lab down the hall was amazing... get in good with the prof and time on the machines with your own tooling suddenly becomes an option.
TechShop and other makerspaces are great options for those with lots of patience and time and have something they can run in, do work on, and run out. You are gonna be hard pressed to setup a project and have all day (if not a few days) to do your cutting work.
Running machines in college, that was a constant problem, especially when you were trying to fixture something and that alone took hours. Now, with good design and fixtures and everything else MAYBE you could in-n-out a CNC job if it was broken down enough and the machines were kept square for you.
For an example of something I recently did with the Sherline, here's a Tiberius T8.1 body I lightened.
http://i.imgur.com/edKcAf5.jpg
The fillet on the back was done by hand with files, but everything else was machined on the little unit.
That sherline is soon going to get an aluminum sheet enclosure (once my CNC router table is finished) and then CNC steppers and a controller added for full 3-axis g-code cutting. It will let me do little projects like that frame on repeat without a lot of time spent counting handle rotations and what-not. As I said, I wouldn't be able to make that slide-frame from scratch: but for modding work, bonzo-presto: you've got a decent little unit.
I concur that the Sherline lathes are going to realistically max out at around 1" DIA parts. Which, for most all paintball applications is sufficient: you can make lots of reg parts, bolts, valves, etc within that limitation.
The lathe I has is already setup for CNC but I need a controller to run it, and without a spindle encoder I have no way to automate threading, stuck using the geared thread-cutting attachments manually. But that's a small problem in the grand scope.
Part of the "problem" that paintball players seem to have is that they love to move in and out of equipment every couple months/years/whenever. It's not really a problem per-se, but I think that's the thing that puts a damper on the custom end of things more than anything else from a logistical standpoint. Spending a couple hundred hamsters to get a unique custom modification isn't out of the range for many people already playing the game, but the custom equipment only holds value to the original owner (or a limited set of followers) and at this point people know there's little point in spending $1800 on a marker just to sell it for slightly-more-than-resale in like 2 years or less.
That's part of the problem that I myself have. I end up with a huge pile of stuff that I keep for the sake of having it...I only play like twice a year but don't want to give up anything that I own or anything that I modify to an appreciable point. It's not an issue of cost (or cost lost) but rather the fact that the cool unique part ends up in the hands of somebody else who doesn't truly appreciate it. If the new owner DOES indeed appreciate it then they would pay the cost for it no problem! But most people aren't interested and would prefer to get a more typical marker, then sell and get something else next year, again and again.
Back in the day (like around the turn of the last century) people were super eager to upgrade and modify their parts. Granted the factory/stock items were worse and begged modification, but it seemed like people were more apt to pay for the work then keep playing with that same unique marker for years and years. Skipping ahead to now, those guys are the old timers that still use 90's Angels, brick Shockers, classic mags, etc. Even if they don't use them, they're often still in a box somewhere. But the value is the same as any current-day midrange electro marker from present market.
Anyway, speaking strictly in terms of representative prices, I don't have a problem doing milling for people but they have to supply the CAD data for it. For me the milling is the easiest part, but I'm not an artist so the modeling side takes too long. The ultimate price for just that machining work depends entirely on the amount of detail...large open contours take less time than tiny fine details. There's a certain threshold where a project's time doubles. lol
The only way I'm able to justify low prices on that sort of thing is to piggyback it onto the production jobs. Some of the upfront time is saved, but of course not all..
You sumed up why I don't do custom work for anyone anymore and if and if I want to it's 50% down before I startQuote:
Originally Posted by Simon
I stopped doing work for friends also. Takes way to long and complain on top of it.
That is really cool!! I really want to learn, but I feel like it is a bit of a steep learning curve for something that would be a hobbyQuote:
Originally Posted by PBSteve
It's really not that bad for anyone who is technical, which obviously you are. Take a look into it. You may find you get hooked. It is certainly amazing to be able to realize your dreams. It's what got me hooked on CAD and then CNC machining. :tup: There aremany of us here that will help you also.Quote:
Originally Posted by d0cwho
I definitely wouldn't consider myself technical haha...this forum has been incredible in helping me understand the technical details of paintball design. I at least want to teach myself CAD so I can bring some of my ideas to life. Maybe I'll learn the machining side, but baby steps at this point hahaQuote:
Originally Posted by Simon
Yeah see I know CAD (from architecture) and some 3D, but the CNC side seems so far out of my understanding to be a whole other language. So I feel d0c's pain.
It is just like anything else in that you need to start with the basics and work your way up.
I do not recommend anyone try and jump straight into CNC without at least dabbling manually for a short period
You need to feel the forces at the handles and spend time setting things up to appreciate what it is you are doing. Learning the basics of when to climb cut, when to conventional cut, when to plunge cut, how you should attack certain parts and the exact reasons why. Learning how parts are made will make you immeasurably better at designing parts as well, and anyone who ends up having to make parts you designed will love you for it.
Even taking a "CNC class" will likely only give you the basic ideas.
I have learned an insane amount on the job versus what I learned in my classes, looking back all the classes really taught me were the basics, but I still recommend that is where anyone who is interested get started. You will get to the big guns eventually, just take the time to set up a good foundation and it will make you much stronger in the long run.
Techshop is really cool, but the different locaitons seem to have different offerings, but many overlap.Quote:
Originally Posted by PBSteve
There is also such a thing called a hackerspace. According to this map, there are 4 in your area. http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces The general premise is that they are communal places for people to work on projects with whatever tools are available in the space. They are all probably going to be different, but with 4 semi-close by, you probably have some pretty good options.
For G-code, youtube. Seriously, it's crazy dry stuff, but I learned a lot of it on videos about MACH3, which is the program I was going to be using. For CAM, an embedded program is probably the easiest. HSMexpress is free and has options in Inventor and Solidworks. There are tutorials, and learning within a CAD interface you know is always easier. Any specific issues, throw it into Google and see what pops up. Watching demo videos on YT, again, is another way to learn the CAM side if you prefer like that.
The only G-code I really know and feel the need to use is G54 of G53 to tell the machine where to go. I could just jog, but if I jog it to get a new tool in, I can just tell it to go G53 X0 Y0, and now it's back to the machine's XY zero.
I've brought problems here too, and had quality help in a few hours. Sometimes, a second set of eyes is all you need.
Yeah, I've been to a couple hackerspaces and they seem to avoid heavy machines.
That's a bummer. There is actually one downtown here. Looking at some of the pictures they have a Bridgeport mill and what looks like a Southbend 9" lathe. Mostly artsy stuff, but all of it useful in some way for PB related projects.Quote:
Originally Posted by PBSteve
Having converted a Grizzly brand X2 mini mill to CNC, I would recommend going at least one style larger if your needs/wants are primarily paintball related (not that anybody has recommended one). Without pretty heavy modifications, the travels are too small to be able to machine a frame without multiple setups per side - even with modifications you are pushing it, and some bodies are likely at the absolute limits of the x-travel. X3 mills actually have a not so decent reputation as far as their rigidity for their size, a BF20 type mill or similar is typically more strongly recommended as a candidate for CNC conversion (Grizzly G0704 or similar). The Grizzly G0758 sort of splits the difference size wise at a pretty good price.
Those are, of course, with CNC conversion of a manual mill in mind. As ElPanda mentioned, dabbling with a manual machine for a while will be very beneficial to your capabilities.
If a conversion isn't something you would be interested in, I'd honestly lean towards a gantry style machine like HipboyScott mentioned. Usually considered a router, there are a number of them out there with very successful track records of working with aluminum. One of the nice aspects of starting with a DIY gantry router is that if you run with one of the designs having a good aluminum working track record, you can over time machine more robust and rigid framework to replace the original structure (often made from 80/20 aluminum extrusion or similar) and enhance the machine's capabilities.
So y0da has sage advice again. I wish I had followed and read that reply more carefully months ago.
I just put in a deposit for a Precision Matthews PM25MV, after visiting someone who had a G0704 sitting in the back of their shop and explaining how he planned to eventually CNC the little unit. I'd never seen that class of mill, and just assumed it diddn't exist. After doing some research on 'the Zone' I called up PM, and hopefully in May sometime I'll get a call that my unit is ready to ship.
I am stoked for the potential I'll soon have, but I'm also surprised that for all the talk I've seen of people trying to mess with Sherline/Taig/Seig and then discussions usually jumping straight to talk of Tormach machines; and seemingly no-one calling out from the rafters that for a really modest budget one can get into a G0704/BF20/Titan/Whatever class mill that is practically begging for being turned into a DIY Hobby VMC... that is just a large oversight in the community. It's perhaps intentional but it's like the best kept secret in hobby CNC.
And then I see that they make 10x30 lathes for a song as well?
China has been busy.
I know it's not old iron, I know its not going to cut like the Heavy 10 or JET lathes I used. And I know a G0704 won't hog steel like a Bridgeport or even a Tormach or a Haas or anything. But, for a guy with a modest budget who wants to tinker with ideas?
The machines are definitely big enough to handle some legitimate milling tasks that, predominantly went to Bridgeports (less out of rigidity but envelope at least); and yet these machines require neither the footprint or power consumption or logistics as the full knee mills do; they use 110 power, they only weight a few hundred pounds, they aren't 8' tall, they aren't 60 years old. Those are great things when you're looking for something to stick in the basement.
I spent a lot of time and energy building a 4x8 gantry router, and it works great for the intended purposes of cutting airplane parts, but it doesn't pull off the small-part milling/prototyping task that I had wished it might also magically do. Not that it can't, but it just isn't setup to do that; I want flexibility for cutting big soft things.
A router table that stays under 24" in either axis and is made entirely of aluminum/steel with a rigid table and uses probably ballscrews, will make a formidable small mill. But, I'm super excited for my PM25 and probably soon after a PM1030V, and by then I'll be able to custom make most-anything paintball related I want to experiment with. Production, that's a different story, but small steps.
Paying for your own design to be done is way cheaper