Re: Wood Duck redux

Aaron,

Thank you for the reply.

It's interesting that more than a few replies have mentioned the
desire to leave motors and control out of the kit. I'll have to pay
attention to that; since it keeps coming up in replies. Perhaps
there's a way to pre-qualify a builder?!?

But it's not likely in the near future that we'd offer a kit withOUT
the motors and control box.

Because leaving them off is the surest way to increase our support
costs drastically, IME. We no longer have a system engineered to
work to a reliable set of specs.

The balance between power supply, motors, drivers, leadscrew,
bearings is one of the more critical points in a CNC design and is
easily disrupted. Even structural items are based on knowing what
these "other parts" will be. Without including them, the kit becomes
far less likely to successfully get a person moving into CNC.

Unless of course, they use the motors, drivers, power supply, etc.
that the kit has been designed for. And in that case, why not use
our volume purchasing ability to just include them?

Side note:
IMO THAT should be the goal; SUCCESS. Not just cheaper. There are
other paths when "cheaper" is the goal. We sell driver chips, power
supplies and other bits and pieces towards that end at cncresource.
To meet the goal of success, IMO the whole thing needs to be
addressed AS a whole thing...

The closest parallel to DIY-CNC I can see is the kitbuilt aircraft
industry. Similar safety concerns, technical aspects, various paths
to the result, and notable testoterone involvement<G>
Over the last ten years, they've gone from largely plans and helper
partial kits based offerings, more and more to complete kits and
even come-to-our-site-and-use-our-factory-tools quick build options.

Because a person who bought your kit, even after he or she has
modified it beyond comprehension, will still refer to it as "your"
product. You will be paired with their success or failure forever.
I've seen guys die who "only" changed the airfoil!
Perhaps more telling are those who've died from adding aerodynamic
wingtips to a square tipped plan, or other non-obvious improvements--
like a canopy--which completely change the design parameters and
leave the designer with an entry on the EAA/FAA listing of fatal
crashes.

Now we're NOT building aircraft; but the same things apply, IMO. Not
every design detail and decision--or its effect<G>--is obvious. And
small changes can affect<G> the results in large ways.

I've watched and been part of the DIY-CNC thing since 1989. Most
failures and reported problems I've seen are due to motor and
controller choices, in relation to "known" designs.

Comments invited,

Ballendo

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, Aaron <aaron.groups@...>
wrote:

> I could be interested in a the above kit option, but minus the
> pre-configured controller. Keep the motors and electronics as an

add-on

> option. I enjoy electronics and have extra motors, etc. laying

around,

> but I don't want to design/engineer/source every piece of a

machine.

> Neither do I have a complete enough shop to build all the parts

required

> if I'd buy somebody's plans. I'd rather just buy a kit and bolt
> everything together.
> > <snip>