The margin may also help focus your attention on it. If you invest that margin in improvements, and people don’t mind paying it (and the ecopy is still free), then that will help it grow.
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Okay Doug just called with a very nice solution to the printed manual. Amazon publishing.
I dropped in the 78 LR pages directly from the docs. Comes out to a minimum list price of $6.10 and adding up to another 1k pages is $.50. That means adding the estlcam, and control board pages would be fine.
Putting a bit more effort into the online docs to make the printed version that much better. Win win?
So amazon, $10 printed manual, worldwide, easy/free shipping for those who want it.
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I just found out about V1 and your cnc designs today from a Reddit forum. I’m a hobby woodworker that builds complicated furniture that uses a lot of bent laminations. Jigs and mold forms require a ton of hand work to refine the shapes. A large format cnc would be amazing. However, i haven’t seen anything for less than $3-4k on the market. I’ve searched for diy cnc kits, entry level cnc builds, aluminum 8020 builds, etc and never found V1. So I’d say for starters you need to up the marketing. Im not sure if influencers would help, but certainly some sort of social media advertising would help. Secondly, i understand it’s an open source thing but why not charge something for the .stl files. and keep the firmware free or sell both. I’m in the market and I’d pay for both. It’s a nice idea to be free, but as a consumer looking to make an investment I’d rather you charge me something for the time you put into developing the system so it ensures you are around in a year or ten to help me with and issue or an upgrade. Im the type of guy that can build just about anything, i can even wire things (both low and line voltage) but I don’t know the first thing about computers. I think the electronics side of things definitely deters people. I have a similar experience with beer brewing. About 10-12 yrs ago I got heavily into brewing but the tinkering with Turkey fryers to hold specific temps became annoying. I was already on a homebrewing forum and some of us members started automating the process. It started with electric elements and relays then valve actuators, etc. I built an amazing system but of course new members saw what we did and offered up a new gizmo, raspberry pi. It opened tons of capability but many of us (who built amazing “dumb” electrical systems) just couldn’t wrap our heads around flashing boards and deleting lines of code. Ultimately someone developed the Brewtroller and some other purpose built boards that were plug and play. I bought one and rebuilt my system and it turned out awesome but it was “plug and play”. I didn’t want to have to find relay boards and temp sensor boards, etc. that was too much for me to handle. I’d much prefer to pay a premium and get it in a package. Also, one thing to remember with hobbies like this it’s not always about being the cheapest option. I’m a builder, so while i could afford a more expensive pre-built option, i like to build something that works specifically for my need. Clearly no one needs an automated home brewery, yet I’ve got one! Don’t undervalue the amazing product you’ve created with the assumption that you have to compete with cheap Chinese systems. FWIW, I’ll be buying one I just need to decide between lowrider or the other. Nice work!
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@vicious1 Ryan, I think the mostly needed upgrade to the LR you need is a GRBL board. Marlin works (i run my lr with that) but people that have look the lr2 i run test it and ends up saying they dont like the marlin approach…
The machine when you have dialed in it works wonderful. No other machine can beat that price. It surely dont compete with a 5k+ machine
A complete set for the lr3 (with everything needed to build plates/printed parts and wo/tubes)with a grbl board i guess it will make things easier.
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I think the length of this thread shows the depth and quality of the product and the support you have from everyone invested! Very excited to see how this develops.
The clincher for me to go with a Lowrider 2 was the community. There are lots of unique diy products out there and more expensive packages with supposedly solid support. I was more interested in something that had had a shakedown by a bunch of people that were still very active in the forum. That gave me confidence that I wasn’t going to be left high and dry if I came across a snag.
You have at least 3 online components: The Shop, the Forum/Community and the Docs
They are maybe not as integrated as well as they could be in the shop “marketing”. The forum is linked on the home page but do visitors see it as the major component of the product that it is? “Thriving Active Community for support and Sharing” with an image of the forum latest or landing page perhaps?
The docs are being addressed here but the only link I could find on the shop page was the one that says “More Info” and it links to the MPCNC subsection of the docs. I think Documentation describes it better. Maybe Details and Documentation? Or Detailed How-To and Documentation? Something that describes the breadth of content available.
As an aside, has anyone mentioned a page in the docs with a list of software/online tools used by the community? Maybe categorized? I see a sentence on it here: Introduction to The MPCNC - V1 Engineering Documentation
e.g.
Vector Design
- Inkscape
- Adobe Illustrator
CAD
- Fusion 360
- FreeCAD
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As an aside, has anyone mentioned a page in the docs with a list of software/online tools used by the community?
I believe you are looking for this? Assuming that is what you are looking for, the issue is that you did not come across as part of the flow in building your Lowrider.
While not in the docs, if someone asks for this kind of information, I usually also refer them to this topic in the forum.
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I saw the workflow option and I think that’s crucial.
I was thinking more along the lines of the topic you linked. That table, maybe integrated with the workflow page, or a standalone doc page with a link in the workflow to that list of options.
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All the machine links and some of the others are direct links into that specific subsection of the Docs.
Thank you for that post. It really made a lot of sense to me. Even for me there are some things I would rather not build, example Sous Vide. I was ready to make it with the crock pot and PID setup, then realized that it would be nice to have it done and safe for everyone.
I am all for GRBL, but in the end currently the boards are more expensive, no complete screen options, and for the end user the experience is exactly the same, and heck even the gcode is 99.9% identical. I am looking into this.
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I ve learned to use the Marlin gcode, but i know people that doesn’t want to even look at it. I got one of the Bart boards with fluid nc (not yet installed) but it is capable also of grbl32
Also i want to ask: is there a LR3 complete package on sale? With all the parts needed on a single package? (I dont want to even remember the parts sourcing on amazon/ebay. )
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The printable manual sounds intriguing, but I wonder if there wouldn’t be a way to modularize them. There are a lot of options to choose from, so there’s not really a “one size fits all” manual. In my personal case, I wasn’t using a V1-supported controller, so wouldn’t have wanted to spend cash printing pages about wiring the controller or customizing V1 firmware.
Could there be a form that generated a custom manual for a chosen set of machine (Primo, LR2, LR3, etc.), controller, firmware, and ESTLCAM primer options, that would then be downloadable or sent as a “print on demand” job?
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Currently the Docs as is pretty wonderfully. In your browser, “print page”, “save as a PDF”. Any page can be done this way.
If I do set up the for sale manual, it will include most pages because after the first forty pages the rest are $.50/1k pages.
I am not sure what you mean. The Gcode for Marlin and GRBL are nearly identical. You should not have to interact with either. The CAM software does it for you. And if you mean the firmware, well most people that buy a kit from here do not have to touch that either. If they did flashing is nearly identical as well.
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Just checking in. I am making babysteps.
I consolidated all my notes down to 5 1/2 pages of items, most are significant steps individually. So this will take a while. Reading through them is exciting, not overwhelming. I wanted to reiterate my thanks for you all caring enough to help.
What I have been doing-
I have a friend finishing up a LR3 and he has been giving me notes on the build kit and instructions. It has been extremely valuable, not a build night, but it would make one easier to do now. So that has added a lot to the notes as well. I have made a few small changes to the DOCs already because of it and have plenty more to go. This also gave me some things to add to make it more complete of a kit.
Updated the ZenXY to FluidNC, learned a ton. Will be updating the Docs with new information. That should take care of some of the uncertainties in those “instructions”, of course, there is lots more to do there.
Working on the site. Still getting the shipping costs more accurate. Moving it to the shopify platform to unify it more, new theme, more cohesive, lots of added info, more links, still futzing with the videos. This will have some growing pains when it launches, though. I have to launch it to work on the options for the kits.
Hopefully have a featured user, and basic CNC project to add to the mix.
And in my “down time” I have been getting my plasma table ready for action 
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Oh…and…
I think he has helped me to realize a fully assembled (or maybe a 95%) LR3 kit is a possibility, at least in the US. I would like to try it out and see how it goes. Tons of info to share here but let’s wait until it gets closer to a reality before I go any deeper.
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Look forward to hearing more!!!
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GEN Eisenhower has said, (paraphrased) all plans get thrown out at first contact with the enemy, but planning is the most important part.
I’ve been in staff at levels up to Brigade and Division (currently) and I will also reflect that one does not need a 100% solution before stepping out. But at least a path of least resistance with a capable unit and effort.
Ryan, you may think you are not ready, but there is a massive staff right here in the forums to utilize/leverage for course of actions, who have provided you with depth of R&D comments. What ever you decide to do, you will be right as rain and can always reach back here if you need.
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Thank you!!
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So many good points to discuss since I read this… my ear turned a bit when folks were discussing limiting decisions for beginners. I 110% agree with that idea… there should be a simple gateway unit that anyone can swallow somewhat easy after clicking buy now. Cad/cam is always going to be a hurdle, but I think a lot of folks would be motivated to learn once they have a simple easy to setup Cnc sitting in front of them.
Options for routers is a thing that could be worked on, to go with the above idea. You already have parts handled for international tubing sizes… something similar for routers would be good. That and vacuum attachments are almost guaranteed anxiety for all beginners. So offering printed mounts for an assortment of popular routers would help.
Lots of awesome discussion wrt the morphing market (diy to consumer) to go off of here too. You know where I fit in there… I feel my posts often don’t help relieve lurker anxiety any. Along those lines… a good way to sort of wallgarden off the gateway to v1 from all that advanced discussion… without reducing it, just make it obvious when a beginner walks into an advanced discussion.
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Thanks Kev!
Updated the laser page, Main - V1 Engineering Documentation, Pins, software, M3 I, power supply info. Let me know if something should be clarified, or if I missed something.
Got a couple clips for the new home page, worked on the plasma for a minute, did some more vcarve and epoxy tests.
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Oh and, Updated the backend software for the docs and doc theme, tried to figure out an out of date error in most of our github pages.
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Laser video links to private video, unable to view. That expected?
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