Kirk,
Thank you for the detail thoughts. I agree that there needs to be a special
chemistry for open source hardware projects to take off and that people
contribute. Its curerntly my job to figure this out or at least give it a hard
long try. As soon as I have the project up I will share my thoughts on a portal
for the project development. My initial strategy is to create a place where,
you can
a. explore a project and its content.
b. view/edit/download all relevant engineering data (parts drawings, schematics)
c. view/edit/download assembly instructions (think instructable and EMC)
d. view/edit/download sourcing information
My hope is to seed the site with the current project, I have a bunch of
picturer in this facebook group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11911880588
I will be looking into a conversion, project some of the points brought up make
perfect sense to me
As for bringing down the cost, China will play a roll, as will cutting away at
the middle man. Doesn't EMC with some IO boards cut aways at some appropriately
controllers. I've spoken with two CNC manufactures and distributors and they
both pointed out how are going to get the motors and controllers "those guys
make all the money in this business"
On the business side - well there is no business plan besides reaching out to
the machine shops of the world with our brand. There will be opportunities for
others to consult, be integrators or sell kits. What I do see is the
opportunity to put some funding and administrative support behind open source
hardware - perhaps we should do routers too. I've been a big fan of Niel
Gershenfeld and his work with fab labs at MIT and around the world. He has a
phrase that sums up what we are trying to accomplish. "the world has had a
software revolution - free software tools are here, but that hardware to make
use of the software has not had a revolution, the means of producing it are
still in the hands of a few"
Is this making any sense?
Jorge Barrera
Director of MFG Labs
MFG.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Kirk Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) <emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:12:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.
On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 18:52 -0700, Jorge Barrera wrote:
> Jim,
>
> At some point I would like to do a retrofit, I know it would be the
> most ecomical way to go if frames are available.
> However the purpose of my project is a bit more complicated.
I learned allot on my first conversion. Don't underestimate the value of
traveling the beaten path to get the lay of the land. Plus, you will
have a machine to make parts for the real project.
> I am trying to see if through innovative sourcing and design the price
> of VMC of HMC could be brought down. Way down.
The current innovative sourcing, and increasingly the design, is called
China, or the next poor country lucky enough to get a chance to gain
what many take for granted. Trying to get people to do more work for
less money has a long history.
> The over all objective is to try and create open source hardware
> designs. I am not doing this on my own I am being sponsored by my
> company MFG.com to try and get this off the ground. I've never build a
> CNC machine before, however I like the challenge of reducing the price
> of proprietary hardware.
I wonder if the advantage of an open or collaborative project is not in
reducing cost of production, but the cost of distribution or similar
costs by cutting out the "middle man" (and maybe the tax man). This has
a history too.
> Now you may be thinking Open Source Hardware? What am I smoking, Well
> projects like EMC have created expectation that perhaps this would be
> possible. If software can be open source why not hardware? Well I've
> been giving this lots of thought. And although there are projects out
> there like OSCAR (open source car) and a number of machine designs
> (mostly pictures), I am out to create a full set of detail drawings
> and a detail BOM, together with a site for collaborative engineering
> that works. I am also looking to get off the bench top into something
> in 2-4 ton range. I like some of the project on Instrutable but I want
> to go bigger.
I agree that an open source project is worth trying, but I tried twice
to start a small collaborative project and got no response.
The latest was a project to make a batch of router type machines with
each person contributing their specialty, be it design, drafting, cheer
leading, sales of extra machines, manual writing, machining, welding,
etc or just plain spending cash. I have no idea why it didn't go
anywhere. So I am thinking that many of the problems you will face will
not be technical at all.
> Collaborative work is a piece of the puzzle and the tools for
> collaborative software development have been here for a long time
> (with low cost to entree). For hardware we have not been so lucky but
> with the right tools and by this I mean engineering and sourcing
> perhaps this can be cracked. Also I know there is more work here than
> I can handle so perhaps this is a good time see who out there may be
> interested in collaborating on this idea.
I am willing to get involved, but if I were a businessman, I would be
wondering how to get a return on my investment. (Credits of some sort?)
I did some brief research on a related subject of Virtual Companies.
These were interesting links:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/10/01/consider-a-virtual-company-to-get-a-flexible-work-life/
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/05/15/a-look-inside-virtual-company-moveonorg/
I lost another link, I think describing today's twenty-somethings as
already living in the virtual world and being frustrated by not much
being there yet. I suppose these people will be the ones that settle the
virtual frontier.
... snip
--
Kirk Wallace (California, USA
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/
Hardinge HNC lathe,
Bridgeport mill conversion, doing XY now,
Zubal lathe conversion pending)
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