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#1
 
10-24-2009, 02:11 PM
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Being unemployed since my last company (a Silicon Valley start-up) got de-funded, and seeing as the market for VP of Engineering types is truly in the crapper for the foreseeable future, I'm looking for ways to pay the bills once unemployment runs out. One thing I've been considering for quite a while is offering truly bolt-on, very high quality CNC conversion kits for benchtop mills, specifically the X3 and RF45 (I think the X2 market is already saturated). These would be the best quality kits I could manage, with zero-backlash ballscrews, high-quality angular contact bearings, an option for servos instead of steppers, and designed to make available every bit of potential for each machine. By way of reference, I have done a stepper conversion a little X2 (which does 270 IPM rapids), and a servo conversion on a knee mill, which does 400 IPM rapids, and 8 cu. in./minute removal in aluminum, and will hold better than 0.001" all day long. These would not necessarily be the cheapest kits out there, but would definitely aim to be the best, for only a small incremental price above the cheaper options. They would be, to the extent possible, complete, bolt-on kits, including all necessary mechanical parts (including fasteners), motors, ballscrews, ballnuts, and, if desirable, motor drivers (Geckos), power supplies, and cables. Provisions would also be made for easily mounting home/limit switches, and other common accessories. So, the question is: Is there really a market, and, if so, at what price? What are the parameters that would make this a viable, (modestly) money-making undertaking? Regards, Ray L.    |
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#2
10-24-2009, 02:26 PM
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IMHO, an RF-45 bolt on kit would be a immediate hit. There are only a few out and they don't look very promising. The CNC fusion deluxe bolt-on kit was the main reason for picking the X3. If a similar kit was available for the RF this would be very different now.... If you really want to make some money. Make a bolt-on kit for the 9x20 lathe. There are not any bolt on/zero-backlash kit available for the 9x20. If you do make one, I'll be you first customer. |
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#3
10-24-2009, 03:20 PM
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Regards, Ray L. |
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#4
10-24-2009, 03:48 PM
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I have actually considered this seriously and to be honest with you I am not sure it will be the great seller one would hope. IH has sold for some time a conversion kit for the IH machines and they I suppose are making money with it but at $4-5K for their kit it is a hard pill to swallow. I have as you know recently completed my conversion and even with trying to carefully squeeze pennies and wind up with a decent servo system in the end I still managed to spend nearly $2k in parts alone.... That does not include any work on my part.(over 10 months now) I think that a very well thought out system would be desirable and for those out there that have the money would be a viable product, but the problem here is that with the cost of the machine, even my Lathemaster machine at $15-1600.00 and then the stand and add in your kit which I am sure from what you have shown on these forums would be SWEET! you are getting dangerously close to a turn key machine albeit probably a smaller version. I am very happy with my conversion and can now see the beauty of the RF45 and clones converted but you would have to be able to offer it at a VERY competitive price. You are dealing with a lot of fellows like myself here that know that with a little info from the net and some rudimentary machining skills can come up with the same thing and for probably a lot less money than you could put together a kit for. A High quality ballscrew conversion kit with motor mounts and adapters for popular sized motors( 34 size etc....) might be doable and that is what I am kinda thinking would be a reasonable product. Most here have the capabilities to wire up the controller and want the freedom to choose the motors and boards etc. The hard part for most seems to be the actual zero backlash ballscrew setup. I am sure you could come up with a clever setup for one of these machines and probably farm out the ballscrew machining or order them already machined for your kits. I have found tho that a complete bolt on system would be extremely challenging on this machine. Just for my X axis setup I chose to secure the motor mount with two additional tapped holes and the Z axis setup even with my machine coming equipped with a now unuseable to me power feed unit did not seem to lend itself to a secure and proper mounting of the Z axis motor assy. Not saying it cannot be done of course but even IH with years of experience on these machines require several additional holes drilled and tapped for the machine converison. The other BIG concern here comes in the fact that while there are many different RF45 clones few of them are identical enough to allow a bolt on kit to be made to fit all or even most of these machines. Take my machine for instance, my millhead and column are quite different to the Grizzly and other clones I see here especially in the base casting and the webbing underneath. Mine has ribs that run underneath the ballscrew across the width of the casting. Some I have seen here have ribs only in the top of the underside of the base kinda like webbing. Does this make it impossible? absolutely not but I would be apprehensive to design one based on one or even two machines. It would take some very careful measuring of several different brands of machines to make sure it would fit a wide variety of them. I know that Enco has had several different versions of the same machine over the years now. Also the table sizes and travels of these machines varies quite a bit which would make accurately sizing the ballscrews challenging. Just some thoughts on this. I agree wholeheartedly that these machines seemingly beg for a cnc conversion kit but perhaps if you aimed at one or two brands of machine in hopes that you would be able to more accurately be confident of proper fitment at the end user. The other trouble with this unfortunatly is the END USER. Many on here are very skilled and talented people, not all have the skills necessary to do this conversion properly and you would be dealing directly with those who do have issues and that can get pretty time consuming as well as frustrating!!!! Again just some thoughts here I am sure others will chime in with their views as well... peace |
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#5
10-24-2009, 05:29 PM
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You make a kit before I get started doing it myself and I'd be VERY interested. Mine is a Precison Mathews from Quality Machine Tool Do it like CNCFusion with separate Z and the user supplies motors. I'm in Cambria and your welcome anytime to come take measurements. |
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#6
10-24-2009, 05:30 PM
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All good points, but I think not insurmountable. First step would have to be doing a conversion for a specific machine, then dealing with the other variations on a theme one-by-one. In general, once a working design is in-hand, dealing with the changes required by a slightly different machine are not a major ordeal. It just takes a cooperative, and motivated, owner of one of those machines to help out in the discovery process. There is almost *no* machine that can be converted as purely a bolt-on, with no additional drilling, tapping, and perhaps minor milling or facing, at least not if you expect a first-rate result. The trick is to design in such a way that most of the machine-to-machine variations can be accomodated easily, and providing, to the extent possible, idiot-proof means of making any necessary mods. All things I've been through before. As for cost, I'd be making deals with suppliers for parts like ballscrews, nuts, motors, etc. that would allow me to sell them all setup for a given machine at little more than the cost an individual could buy the raw parts for, which would make it a whole lot cheaper than an IH kit. I'd guess the overall cost increment, between an end-user buying parts in onesies, and the cost of an equivalent kit ready to hang on the machine, would be well under $500. The idea would be *not* to cater to the guys that are shaving every penny (because they are *NO* fun to work with....), but the guys who are more interested in making parts ON their machine, rather than making parts FOR their machine. In any case, we'll see where this goes. I'm taking a serious look at the costs now. I have no real concerns about the design, as I can base much of it on what I've already done, or the fabrication, which is now quite easy for me. It's just a matter of realistically assessing the potential ROI, with an eye towards convincing myself it would generate enough income to reliably pay the mortgage (Along with the other things I already make...). Regards, Ray L. |
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#7
10-24-2009, 05:46 PM
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That is I believe pretty much what I said in my post.... I am sure you could do it and if you did base it on a single machine initially with an ear to the possible fitment of the kit to other brands you would be looking good. I find it real hard to believe that you could sell it and make any significant money on it at a price point $500.00 more than the parts could be had widely... I sure hope you can tho.... Not trying to be a party pooper here, ya know I feel that these machines are great little mills and IMHO infinitely more capable than their smaller counterparts. About as close to a real cnc machine once converted as most would want in their garage taking up a reasonably small amount of space. I would be willing to help you with what I have learned doing my conversion if you like and I do think that there are some areas that could be addressed with parts made on a quality cnc machine( IE more intricate and detailed) that would make for a better overall product in the end. The conversion tho is really no different I am sure from any other machine. Do you plan on making the quill automated or as I did the Z column.... I basically disabled my quill as I feel it is not necessary in this cnc world.... I see that there are still a few companies selling converted cnc machines with the Quill automated and I feel that is losing the point of the square column entirely.... Good luck with this and keep us posted...peace |
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#8
10-24-2009, 08:26 PM
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As a yardstick, when I did the conversion on my knee mill, I spent probably 6 weeks designing and fabbing the parts for mine - doing a crude set first, then the final "pretty" set doing CNC using the crude parts. Once done, I made a second complete set of parts for a friend with an identical machine. That second set took maybe 3-4 days to make. At the time, I was making lots of mistakes, and still hadn't really gotten good at CNC, and certainly was not pushing the machine. Things that, back then, would take me hours, I can now do in minutes. On my other products, I've increased my output by a factor of 5-10. My guess is, once I had the design down, and proper fixturing for doing production, I could easily build a full set of parts for something like an RF45 in little more than a day, especially with two machines running (the RF45 prototype and my knee mill). So, I think $500 over the parts cost is do-able. As for moving the quill vs moving the head, each has it's good points and bad points. On my knee mill, I (still!) move the knee, but that is changing in the next few weeks. The knee on a knee mill, and I suspect the head on the typical RF45, will have it's problems. With dovetails, there is always a bit of slop, that makes for small inaccuracies. Quills, too, often are not fit as snugly as one might like, resulting in some lateral slop. The quill on my knee mill is perfectly tight, so I expect to work very nicely. Having both CNC'd makes for a nice compromise, as you can use the knee/head movement to do tool length compensation, and have a very fast, hopefully accurate, quill. But I don't know how good the quills are on RF45s. I'm guessing less than stellar. Plus, retaining the quill can really complicate things like power drawbars for ATCs. Overall, for a typical hobby machine, I think you made the right choice - ditch the quill feed, gut the head, and go for a nice high-speed belt drive. Increasing spindle speed is probably the single best thing you can do to get improved throughput. Mine, at 8200, is still frustratingly slow. I *really* wish I could get up to 10-12K, but I'd have to rig up some kind of oil cooling to pull it off for more than brief periods. "I would be willing to help you with what I have learned doing my conversion if you like" - You may well live to regret those words, Petey! :-) I just reviewed your thread again today, to get a better feel for what's involved. Your conversion is an excellent model. I think you did a really nice job, and paid attention to all the right details. Regards, Ray L. |
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#9
10-24-2009, 09:58 PM
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It seems to me that while Aaron had intended IH's business model to be selling Conversion kits for the square column mills and the mill he sold was kind of considered an "Accessory". ( his words) Today IH with Gene & Tommy the push seems to be turn key machines and crate sold manual machines with accessory options. I have even seen mentioned that they prefer not to sell the conversion now unless it is to be fitted to a IH machine as they don't want to have to support all the variations. Get Gene on the phone and a deal can be worked out, but the IH kit is meant to be near bolt on for an IH machine. If you try to fit an IH kit to a non IH mill its not bolt on anymore - its just a starting point. Aarons first conversion if I remember right was on an Enco. The Enco of today and the RF45 have alot of differences. If your kit was specific to the actual Rong-Fu RF45 it would sell. Later you could add Enco and other models as you collected the specs which make the machines different. |
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#11
10-24-2009, 10:25 PM
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You want a real seller. Its just what you said. Design a good 2 or 3 speed belt drive conversion for the RF45/Zay/IH heads that gets rid of all that hideous gear noise and allows the user to run a VFD. You just do the belt drive, let the customer source motors and VFD if they are not content with the OEM supplied motor. Just spec out what flange size options and shaft sizes you can support. Another seller would be a 2 or 3 speed belt drive conversion for the X3 mills. No one has this on the market yet, There is a pulley swap set to double the speed on the SX3 but its a single gear speed, with all the compromises a single gear has. You would out sell the makers of CNC conversions because the spindle speed issue plagues all users. not just the CNC crowd. |
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#12
10-25-2009, 12:36 AM
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| As Pete said: "Not trying to be a party pooper here, ya know", but you asked for sincere opinions, not empty cheers, so here it goes: I think "kits", in general, are big trouble for the manufacturer because you have to deal with a BIG unknown, uncontrolable factor: the customer - he could be a competent machinist, able to expertly assemble the kit or a complete noob, unable to fasten a screw without stripping the threads... You "say" that you intend to provide high quality ballscrews/ballnuts - these are very costly and relatively delicate components, which can be destroyed in an instant by careless handling or assembly without proper alignment; guess what happens then - the customer will never admit it was his fault and will demand that you replace, at your expense, those expensive components... You say yourself that "There is almost *no* machine that can be converted as purely a bolt-on, with no additional drilling, tapping, and perhaps minor milling or facing", so this again assumes that your customers will have to be reasonably proficient with a drill, tap, mill, etc - these kits often present the egg x chicken dilema: you need a mill to install the kit, but it is disassembled because you are installing the kit. In short, the only way to avoid a customer relations nightmare would be if you could somehow select your customers based on some unknown way of evaluating their abilities, and this seems impossible to do. Remember the old electronic kits: Heathkit, etc - probably not, you're not old enough; I myself loved them and assembled a few, but they are all gone, for quite some time - I think their doom was the customer problems outlined above, plus the fact that improvements and automation, plus low-labor-costs in some countries have eliminated any price advantage a kit would have over a factory- assembled product; Actually, I suspect nowadays a kit would have to cost much more than the assembled product, due to the costs of the packaging, creating and supplying instructions, liabilities when an idiot hurts him/herself trying to assemble the kit, etc. I think the considerations above apply, to a degree, to the kind of kit you are contemplating. You talk about idiot-proof, but you must have heard what we say in my activity (software development): you can't make it idiot-proof - idiots are very creative... BUT, there is more: in your case you have a second big unknown: the machine to be converted: as many have pointed out, no two clones are exactly the same - it seems that they are made by dozens of different small factories in China, and each introduces its own modifications; even the machines you buy from the same US importer may vary from one shipment to the next, so they are a "moving target" to the developer of a kit like yours. What is more, there is no practical way of distinguishing between the many different versions: you would have to ask the customer to disassemble and measure his machine to see if your kit would be appropriate for that machine flavor. Anyhow, I think that, like IH seems to have found out, this is not a promissing area for a kit: the machine to be modified is relatively inexpensive, costing 2 or 3 times less than the kit, so why not including the machine in the kit? Concluding, I think that supplying converted machines are a much safer business model: you buy the machines with some quantity discount, build and install the modifications and supply a RF45 clone ready for installing the motors and electronics. You could then be sure that the ballscrews/nuts are correctly aligned, the gibs are appropriately adjusted, lubrication is correct, etc. Of course it would cost more than the kit, but may be not that much more - say 1.500 dollars more - 1.000 for the machine plus 500 for kit installation (mechanics only). I think the customer can be trusted not to screw thing up when installing the stepper or servo, since the standard mounts and couplers would be provided by you. Of course, you could also offer more complete packages for customers desiring a more turn-key product: machines with motors installed, drivers wired and even complete software packages I myself would love to buy a machine like the one I describe above: I am not a complete noob, but I don't trust my machining abilities to the point of installing zero-backlash ballscrews, high-quality angular contact bearings, etc. I could, however, easily install the motors, drivers and software... One last thought: I think you may be in for a surprise when you say:"I'd be making deals with suppliers for parts like ballscrews, nuts, motors, etc" - unless you intend to be real BIG (say many thousands of parts, at least), the big guys couldn't care less about the small company: one part or a few dozen are the same for them, at least in my experience... I am rooting for you, and sincerely hope that you can find your market niche - I would be your first customer for the factory converted RF45 clone (mechanics only) if not for the sad fact that shipping and custom duties would make it cost something like 20.000 dollars to me... Nelson |
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