2022, updates and game plan

Happy New Year!

In terms of the business around here, I figured I would pull back the curtain a bit (open the garage door if you will!).

All the vendor prices are going up pretty significantly. I am doing what I can to offset that. On top of that, shipping to and from here have increase pretty drastically. I hate increasing my prices, and really have never done so significantly.

My International vendors have all seemed to cut the offerings they have. So I am scrambling to find some new suppliers. The best to come of this…I think I found better pulleys, so grub screws should be less of an issue.

So here are some updates.

MPCNC-
-I have stopped ordering custom series wires. Individual only now, although I did get them longer. So I hope to buy in larger quantities to try to offset the price increases. We no longer have 4 driver boards, so no reason to do series.
-This does not mean people need to use endstops, if just means they can if they want.
-I hope this makes buying easier (fewer options to decipher), easier flashing and testing on my end, less to keep track of.
-The only thing I need to get finalized here is the lack of SKR pro endstops and wires in the bundle. I did add a note to the hardware bundle.

LowRider 2 -
-I am not going to make any kits after I sell out of what I have on hand.
-This kit sells far less and is far less profitable. So with my current supply issues this has to get sidelined for a redesign. I made some choices in the design that have come to bite me, so on to the next, bigger and better.
-I am preparing to start on a new full sheet CNC, if my “wild” Idea does not work out I will redesign the current LR2 for easier manufacture with some updates.
-I am hoping to at least be close or have something by March.

MP3DP repeat-
-Still working on the documentation, getting pretty close now.
-I hope to poke at the CAD a bit to make the design a bit easier to resize. It was my first real project in Fusion360 so of course mistakes were made.
-I will try to carry more of the parts to build this one but I am not all that interested in being a 3D printer company, I just think they are super fun projects. At the same time, the strength is the ability to easily resize and use your choice of frame, so kits would be too variable to be feasible.

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Oh, and I marked down some stuff in the miscellaneous category, to try and clear the shelves.

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My local bank just went through a merger, acquisition, kidnapping, hijacking or whatever they choose to call it, they tell me their alleged Customer Service department doesn’t even have the ability to Email me some information I requested. :roll_eyes:

Grazie mille for continually showing you actually care about your customers, it’s appreciated!

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Ryan, I have not been here long at all, is this what you do for a living, or is this a side business? I hope things get way better if this is your main income!

I really like seeing that about the large cnc or low rider redesign. I was maybe considering changing over this summer! :sunglasses: cheers!

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I have been full time at this for nearly 7 years now! The biz is coming up on 7 years, it took me a few months to leave my dream job for this even dreamier job. Things are okay, there are always new hurdles. It is still fun and interesting. I hope to keep doing this for a while.

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Thank you for the honesty and transparency.

This looks to me like a good simplification of the choices to really focus on the important configuration (MPCNC Dual).

I hope your supply issues are tolerable until they get fixed. I don’t know how you manage all of that stuff.

Best of luck this year, Ryan and everyone in the V1 forums. You’re awesome.

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Looking forward to the lr replacement. It’s always exciting when you come up with a new machine.

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Best wishes for 2022 and thanks for all the love and effort you put into this amazing project!

Out of curiosity, what did you design in before?

“Dual” like in dual end stops?

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Happy New Year!
I don’t have much to say besides, Keep doing what you are doing… It is Freaking awesome!

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Yes. But I think it needs a new meaning. Ryan is only flashing and selling dual endstop firmware, but you don’t need to install the endstops. It is just the one driver per motor configuration.

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Solidworks, I am fluent in that and am probably 3x faster. I do really like how some things are done in fusion better until it gets to assemblies and think at that point it really falls behind. I have not really grased how fusion wants files/parts to be handled though.

I like individual, but hate typing that. Direct, maybe?

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I really appreciate the support I get from you all. This absolutely would not work without you!

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I despise Fusion, but I get why people like it and the CAM toolset is a nice touch. I’m using Rhino (Rhinoceros 3D).

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Why do you want to go from solidworks to fusion? I use solidworks at work and also tried fusion and still currently use solidworks.

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The only reason I spent weeks learning it was so I could share CAD files. People want them and sharing Solidworks files would exclude almost everyone from using them. I tried conversions, and import export variations (see ZenXY files) but then assemblies and a lot of constraints do not transfer and you end up with a mess of a file that is fairly worthless.

I tried a bunch of options, and had to consider where to spend my time and fusion seemed the best choice, Onshape would have been a bit more painless but fusion is far less expensive for me…Onshape seems to actually cost more than solidworks in the long term.

I think this is a good step. I get so many requests to make custom sizes “real quick”, got one this morning, actually. I think now when they see the CAD file, the repeat as and example, they realize even if you can just change a number at some point things break. Changing from 25.4 to 25.3 might work, but trying to go to 60 is just not going to work on anything except the most basic of designs.

I guess to add to that I am using an old version of SolidWorks and I am hoping fusion will handle all my needs because I am not interested in paying that much for CAD that I only use heavily for a month or two out of the year…until I figure out how to be more engineer than box packer.

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Talking parametric design for a minute… The thing I find lacking is a min/max/floor/ceiling logic in the parameters. I can (in onshape) easily make a parameter for the thickness of the stock material and then use that to extrude a shape, or do some addition/subtraction to determine the size of something else. But what I can’t do is something like, “This distance needs to be at least 10mm, up to 30mm, and it can’t cause these two arcs to collide”. If I could add constraints like min/max and it would average the difference, I could make much more flexible models.

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Guilty as charged.

As much as you say that you didn’t do the Repeat fil well, it was really useful for me when building the printer, particularly since I wasn’t building it as a straight copy. (I’m starting to gather the kids’ next printer parts, which will be a Repeat the same size as the original… Probably.)

While I shied away from Fusion when they changed the licensing, I’m slowly coming back around to it. I should probably go through all of the tutorial videos and try to actually learn it.

I see lots of that in the forums. People who want to use NEMA23 motors, or bigger tube, “Hey, can you just make a quick change around this thing that’s central to the design…”

Surfaces, arcs, fillets, chamfers, and general collisions. You can make most things an equation, so the filet would be half the surface length or something but general design practice is make your part any fillets or chamfers are added last so they are easy to fix, and anything with a surface is generally not ever going to be edited.

I do not think anyone realizes how stacked the dimensions are on something like the core on the primo. It depends on everything, I made very few actual design choices on it. Design by dictation. The belt locks barely fit, and all the pretty design cutouts on the core, corners, and trucks had to be redone for each size.

I guess if I designed for ease of CAD I could do it but I design for efficiency. If I make a part that takes 3 hours longer to print, that is like 30 extra hours per mpcnc, times the thousands being made. Best to spend the time in CAD once. So releasing some CAD assemblies should help people see that.

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I’ve come across too many businesses that doesn’t doesn’t seem to look at their margins in these chaotic times. Actually, quite a few times, I’ve suspected that they instead keep, or even increase, their margins because people get panicky because of scarcity, shipping delays and losing their economic sense.

Therefore I find it very decent of you to mitigate some of the price increase, in solidarity with the community! Still, I hope you have enough margins, so that you’ll continue being able to live from this.

Thanks for all the great work you do, both in terms of the technical development, but also fostering such a great community here. (I’m not always able to participate much these days, but I’m always tagging along!)

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