But it isn’t a good one…
He also hasn’t really done his homework either it seems talking about the MPCNC using 8mm rods. Maybe he was just exaggerating, but still. And for him to make the comment “Look what this guy is using” referencing how thick the material is. I have seen some very heavy built machines run like crap and machines that look like they are barely holding themselves together run like a top. So don’t judge a book by its cover. He is also wanting something purpose built for aluminum milling. Not what the MPCNC was designed for, you can just use it as such. Unfortunately from the few minutes I watched Tom seems to be confusing the term CNC with Mill. A CNC can be anything. What Tom wants is a mill, not a router or printer, but a mill.
Well it was cool he knew what it was, “MPCNC, the Mostly printed CNC” So it has been on his radar somehow. I just don’t want to give my machines away to these youtube people just to get views at the cost of the real interested users. Low cost means no giveaways, (well I am about to give one away but that is a different story). But I need to do something to get on the radar, these other companies are crushing me.
Isn’t that the cnc we saw at MRRF? They had two of them running.
Also, he probably should have got the thing going off camera, since he killed the live stream before actually getting it to work. I think it’s funny he’s calling this one “janky mdf with some 3d printed parts”. Good way to stop people from sending you stuff to show.
Yup, they have been getting tons of press with that thing.
It is a wicked simple design, but it can’t scale.
I have no idea how they are doing free shipping on that thing, big pieces of MDF and all the parts. Man If I can figure out how they do it I will immediately switch companies. $399 free shipping us and Canada.
There is no way that box is under $30.
So I guess I should raise my price $16 and do free shipping in the US, and $16 cheaper everywhere else? That might actually help sales a lot. I can see I have a ton of abandoned carts. So I can only assume shipping was a deterrent. Somehow that feels creepy to me though like a little lie.
Maybe I will try it for two weeks.
I have some aluminum extrusions, I tried to make a printer out of it. It is twisted as heck and no where near 90 degrees. I watched a video of how they make it. It comes out like spaghetti and then they just stretch it straight. I guess at those lengths it must not be an issue but a little longer and I found serious issues.
That’s what I was thinking too. Having had that shit fold on my trying to make a lighter tv mount, I won’t use it for anything other than trim now. Luckily we didn’t hang the tv yet, I weight tested it with me. Ended up using unistrut. I have the weirdest job sometimes… Hung a 70" samsung in the center of a cube farm.
About the “free” delivery, just do it. The thing is that people never like to see the first price they saw (and implicitly agreed upon) change after they decided they were ok to pay for it. It’s somehow deceiving.
No one really cares if free shipping isn’t actually free. Aside from the dumbest morons, everyone knows that even free stuff comes at a price. So, I can only recommend you to add this cost into the basic price.
About visibility, you should post as many videos of your machine you can on Youtube, tutorials on how to get it running, things you’ve made, step by step instructions and stuff like that.
Maybe also try to find an other similar price ranged machine and do a honest comparison between both.
Also, maybe you could build a few small MPCNCs easy to ship assembled, so that you can lend them to those famous youtubers, journalists and bloggers. They try your machine, give a review, then send it back to you, you just pay for the delivery and try to make it as much plug and play as you can.
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Yeah even 80/20 says .3175mm/foot (sorry for the odd units but I understand small better in mm long in feet) straightness, ummm I wonder how conduit does in this category…
They do use really beefy angle, but I am not sure that is any different.
I had looked into getting custom extrusions made…and patented but the tolerances sucked.
Thanks Dui, I could never compare my machine to another objectively. I feel horrible for talking about aluminum angle in this context.
I am with you on the shipping thing though, I am trying to figure out how to switch mine around. I am currently using sized based shipping rates and would need to translate that somehow to price based or some other easily understood qualifying criteria, without having to readjust my whole store.
BTW, the video of Thomas is pretty long, at what time approximately does he talk about the MPCNC? I don’t have enough time today to watch the whole thing…
The link I put up starts right at the little blurb
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I would love to see a comparison of straightness and just general tolerances on regular conduit vs 8020. Only issue is that conduit varies by vendor and manufacturer runlike most aluminum extrusions which seem to be dominated by 80/20, especially in the US. I have looked around a lot at comments and sadly, the design can be a tough sell for newcomers. The idea of mostly plastic really puts some people off which is unfortunate because the design is great. It is easy to get caught up in just seeing the sheer size in raw material and assuming it is more rigid and a better machine. Also, the steel in our conduits is almost 3x more stiff than that of most aluminum alloys. Question is, is it stiffer than an aluminum extrusion?
That said, everyone I recommend the MPCNC to shows great interest because there isn’t something out there that takes the same conduit rails/printed approach. I was recommended the MPCNC from reddit and I am glad I did. 
I agree to make the shipping free. When I sell my junk on ebay I always ship free but charge a little more. I do agree it seems sort of cheaty because it really isn’t “free”, but if it gets more mpcnc made then I consider it to be a good thing
Judging from the comments and the general commentary in that video, aluminum milling seems like the big target audience. It seems to be the benchmark material for rigidity on practically any consumer level cnc router. I would hate watching someone turn down the MPCNC due to doubt in its abilities, there has to be a better presentation of its milling capability. I agree with dui in that there needs to be some sort of comparison between a few popular machines. I know it is hard to make such a comparison because there are far too many variables, but little to no comparison it at all makes it like a shot in the dark. When dui finishes his 3040, at least we will have an idea of how they compare.
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Well dang Kevin your video is easily the one I will refer everyone to that has doubts about the MPCNC’s aluminum capabilities, and then Barry’s monster build did well to. I mean 4’x4’ aluminum milling on the monster, no other machine can even touch that because they are not capable of being built that size. That alone should sway a few people.
Indeed.
I will talk about my personal experience here, but what convinced me to give a try on the MPCNC was to see it cutting aluminum.
Before that, I had huge doubts about the structure rigidity, and I thought it would barely be ok for milling soft woods. If I had not seen it milling aluminum, I would have made my own design.
We need much more videos of MPCNC milling aluminum, and much more instructions on how to achieve good aluminum milling. Thanks to Ryan and more recently to Kevin (and e few others on Youtube), we do have a few videos of successful attempts. The last video of Kevin was especially convincing, we need more videos like that, where the CNC takes deep paths. Unfortunately I have no camera except the one on my shitty phone, so I cannot really do videos, but I’ll do my best continuing to post as many pictures as possible. People need to see stuff to know that it works.
Yep, I hope we can make the first actual comparison between both machines soon!
Unfortunately my electric scooter blew up yesterday, so I’m not sure I’ll have much time to work on the CNC this weekend cuz I’ll have to fix it, but I’ll get to it as soon as I can!
And I still don’t know how to make this tool changing probe work on Estlcam!!
Ooh, born out of University of Waterloo. Should support more Canada innovation, lol
So Sienci is C$503 for the kit (Ridgid compact router is another $99, available separately at Home Depot, also compatible with Makita). Me having to start from scratch my tally for my MPCNC build have been…
C$371 for the hardware and electronics
5 spools of kilogram PLA filaments at C$29 each
C$149 for a Makita compact router, DW660 could be had for C$100 on sale.
C$499 for the Wanhao i3 to get it all started. OK, I can use it to print something else and/or for the MPCNC build to steal parts from.
Much closer to C$600 net. And I still haven’t built a proper table for it.
It’s already over the $399 price point, and Ryan’s kit (US$245 hardware+US$190 plastic) doesn’t include the spindle either.
Someone interested in an in-depth comparison?
Five spools? Should be easily under two.