There are a bunch of different “instapak foam packaging” on Amazon. Its kind of expensive, but might be worth it until you can afford a machine at scale.
I agree completely. I don’t want to be building from the time I walk in the door at home until the time I come back to work. And of course I want to make as much as I can. But I want it to be a fair price. One that the customer and myself are both happy with. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to a lot of things. I have a hard time putting a proper value on my time. So if anyone has any suggestions I am all for it.
My goal is a fully assembled machine. If I just can’t make it work with the YZ plates attached to the beam then I will remove them. I don’t want to have to charge the customer 2-3 times as much for shipping to keep from taking them off. But I truly hope I can ship with them attached.
I don’t disagree with this. But currently I only have a 20w diode laser at my disposal. So I am not sure if that would be capable of cutting it or not. Past that I would just have to try and cut it with an endmill on the LR4
I will look at that and see. I am trying to do is as inexpensive as possible to save the customer. But at the same time ensure that the machine has adequate protection. Give and take for sure. Right this minute I am leaning towards trying the plastic and great stuff and do it in 2 layers so it’s easy to take apart when the customer receives it.
Yeah that stuff was my original though too. I wonder if it will be too messy, I liked how the other stuff was self contained.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The first couple you ship are going to be you figuring it out. Just ship every Lowrider better than you shipped the last one and provide support if something happens.
No big deal
That is definitely the plan!! My goal is to have everyone that buys one be a happy customer. I’m sure at some point there will be someone that I just can’t make happy. But I will always do my very best. It is a learning curve for sure. And the stuff y’all are telling me will help make the starting point better than it would have been on my own.
First plan was to have the ups store package it. Which would have been a 24”x 24” box and just filled with packing peanuts I’m sure. And would have cost about $250 to ship. So we are already making vast improvements over that!!
I’ve done this and it’s affordable and surprisingly nice. Spray adhesive. Layers.
I have no experience in this arena. So take this with a grain of salt.
It definitely is ok to take some more time to do some learning on the first ones. Don’t underestimate what can be done with some thick sheet foam, a sharp knife, and some hot glue. You don’t have to make a good hourly wage on the first ones, since you are trying to build it up. But there should be at least a map from loss to profit.
The expanding foam and plastic sounds like a good idea. Be aware that some of those heat up a lot and can make the plastic soft. Sp just make sure you test it when you get new stuff.
Your customers don’t want to fleece you either. They are often going to be coming from a different place. They may have a different calculation for their money. If they have to pay someone (who is technical) by the hour to assemble it, they could find the markup easy to pay for. And don’t look too hard at the numbers right now. There is a lot to learn.
Thank you @jeffeb3. Much appreciated. From you and everyone!! I am most definitely an overthinker. And it’s even worse when I am here at work and can’t be home busy actually building.
I got a good suggestion today and added a note that the cnc machines were on “early bird” pricing. So that leaves the door open for me to easily adjust when I feel like I am ready to.
I am not losing money at the rate I am at now. But currently have no idea what I am making per hour to build them either. I do have a number in mind that I want to get to. But until I do a few and get some better systems in place I honestly have no idea where I will be for the first one.
I did get a second order today so that is for sure a plus!!! Now I get 2 to practice on when I get home! And I am beyond excited!!!
As far as the packaging. Currently the plastic and expanding foam is what I plan to try first. I will get a few cans when I get home and try to package an old beta YZ plate and see how it fairs.
So far all my searching for sheet foam has come back with what I considered quite expensive options. But I may just not be looking for the right thing. If anyone has any links or anything else to help me look for the correct thing I would be very grateful! Also still need to know if it can be cut with a diode laser or if it requires a CO2 or something like that.
Keep an eye out over the next little bit. I have another CNC item that should be hitting the store in the next few hours 
assuming I can figure out how to make it work correctly in Shopify 
1" 4 foot x 8 foot sheet is $14
https://www.homedepot.com/p/R-Tech-1-in-x-48-in-x-8-ft-R-3-85-Insulating-Sheathing-320821/202532854
You cut it with a razer knife while drinking a beer. Don’t make it complicated 
Ok. Just finished doing some updates on the CNC Products! Y’all take a look and tell me what you think!
How much weight will be a 48" ?
I will let you know in about a week and a half
I weighed my smaller beta machine and it came in at 19lbs. So I am hoping a 48" after packaging will be 30 or less.
Just for asking lol, im outside the us and i seriously doubt it will survive the trip to my jungle
Yeah I would have to package it a lot more than I plan to for US Shipping, but if the spray foam works out it actually might make the ride just fine, but I would still want to use thicker plywood on the box and that would add to the weight and the cost.
I have not looked at any kind of international shipping yet. But we can do some figuring and see if its possible/feasible if you are intrested.
An example below. This is the wrong supplier and these are quoted local pickup- but we should be able in the community to find sutable options for you.
http://www.usafoam.com/closedcellfoam/cross-linked-polyethylene-foam.html
One sheet of this sounds pricy, but if you assume an end cap, a cutout for the YZ plates, and a couple of cutouts for mid-span you would get on the order of 4-8 packing sets out of one sheet. Looking at it that way, it doesn’t sound too terrible to me. The 1" thick sheet is $48, so on the order of $10 per gantry in foam.
As noted above, you could also manually knife cut this.
Or, crazy idea even needle cut it like the threads @dkj4linux has on the forum.
Polyethelene and crosslinked polyethelene should be laser cuttable without too much hasle and without any bad toxicity (would still want to read an MSDS of anything you might use.)
You would want to cut this on the laser in dot mode instead of with continuous power. We had commercial (startups) makerspace members that did a bunch of packaging work with dot mode on the CO2 laser.
It would be worth doing an experiment with a 20-40W UV diode laser.
I was just recently looking for an upgrade laser module for my JL1 and found that NEJE was having a sale on a full machine with the module I was considering- at less than the retail price of the laser module itself!
So, I now have a cardboard box next to my RC2 LR4 table just waiting for me to clear off the table and set the brand new NEJE machine on it. Maybe we can do some tests that way to inform us.
Dot mode uses the laser in a similar way to a high speed needle cutter. It pulses the laser, then moves a little, then pulses the laser, until done. Very different than a continuous cut.
So, maybe the community can look for suitable FL sources of Polyethelene
There was also ployurethane foam cut in our machine- so sourcing that is also an option.
When I tried to find the data sheets for the home depot pink stuff, I decided I didn’t want to mess with polystyrene because there is an ignition risk and it has enhanced flammibility issues as a result.
I just buy with a FL shipping and i pay a courrier-forwarder to my country
I had a very different picture in my head. And now that you have said it this way It makes a lot more sense to me. I had way over thought it lol. Now its just finding somewhere local that sells it in the Pensacola, FL area
I do have a 20w Laser tree diode on the Primo, so if it can be cut with that I would much prefer that over hacking at it with a knife
That sounds good to me! I would assume you would still need me to package it stronger for that kind of journey?
I haven’t tried one but you could rig up a LowRider with a needle cutter.
https://docs.v1e.com/tools/foam-needle-cutter/
I would love to try that. But I just don’t have time for that right now. I am really hoping that the Diode laser can cut it.