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It's funny... The other day, spoke about CNC mill and lathe with a friend on messenger, and since then, I have a lot of publication about Makera Carvera in my feeds... It's costly, too much to my current budget, but from what I see, it could be quite interesting for many of my use cases...
And I just discovered they plan for a lower cost offering which is supposed to launch at some point this year. This may change some of my priorities... Maybe at some point, I'll have to replace printing by making in the tittle of the thread...

For those with experience in CNC/lathe machine, any equivalent offering out there?

Thats a decent little cnc machine and I like that it has a tool changer, but not cheap.

My first little cnc machine was a cheap one from eBay, it was woefully under powered, but for the cost was ok to learn on. I was even able to cut 2 mm aluminium sheet on it, but it's not something you'd want to be doing every day. I then bought a larger, more solid frame and added my own components. That was a steep learning curve, but worth it I think. What ever you get and if you intend on cutting metals, it will need to be a rigid as possible and as heavy as possible.

Well, If I take my Super Wheelie, there is a few parts I had to take original : motor plate, rear shafts, and a few other parts I would have need if I did took the option to use springs instead of shocks... And this sound like unachieved somehow...
Then, when I look at the Gemini SLX, there is the chassis. For such a part, a CNC router is required beside the need to fold the chassis...

And in any case, Johann, our recent discussions have fed some ideas... I'm not really far from being able to do all by myself for many cars... And the more I think, the  more I may alter the plan in order to do one in full

I just did a quick test, folding the polycarbonate is easier than I thought, I have a press brake, and used 1.5 mm roofing grade polycarbonate, was very easy to do.

Also you might need to invest in a shed or a warehouse, I can see you ending up with a lot of machinery soon!



polycabonate, no problem at all.

 

Very interesting... May I ask you a picture of your press brake?

this is a 3 in 1 machine, so you can cut, fold and roll. Mine is about 900 mm wide, and you can get smaller ones. The thickest you can cut is about 1.6 if it's short and maybe 0.8 the whole way. 

Someone at the club had some ideas about putting together some printed parts to make a drift track, and we discussed his ideas... He was looking for some big parts to mark the walls of the track. He is a beginner in both 3D design and printing. He started to put some design together without thinking about printability (ease of printing, time of printing), and cost. His design required supports, and printing time would have been around 10 hours per part...

I made a very quick design on my own to explain him a few things.


there is 4 different parts (I may add some additional components in the collection later on).
- 1 straight component
- 1 turning 10° left
- 1 turning 10° right
- one connector

Printing 20 of them with 20 connectors would be approximatively about 8 hours (5% infill, strength settings), and would use about a third of a kilogram of filament, with no support needed. And that would be good to mark about 1 meters of track. 10 meters marker would be about 40 hours of printing.

Just published the first set of parts for the modular walls in case you want to build yourself a simple rc track :
makerworld.com/...eId-296531

One of my work colleague knows i'm doing a lot of 3D printing and CAD activity. A few days ago, she contacted me and asked if I could do a part for her husband newly acquired Can-Am MY 2015. I told her I was not sure, but why not.
 And the following day in the office, her husband came to show the trike and the issue he had with the luggage rack lock. He lost the left lock on the road. I looked at the part and thought I could do something about this as it is initially plastic part, with not much effort on it, and it should be doable with a print in PETG or Nylon (ABS is out of the picture due to the way it wears with UV exposition). I designed a part, and completed with another part so it's better than the original design, printed the two parts, and brought them to my colleague with a mission to test it over the week-end. They did 150km with the part, and iit worked, but there was something that could be improved, which I did.

I'l currently printing two sets and will get this delivered on next day in the office.

Another thing I did within the week-end was to print a TPU part. My daughter's car exhaust had an issue : the silent block (rubber) was broken, and the main exhaust tube detached itself from the collector. I had to find a temporary solution until we get the replacement parts (silent block and connector tube - which is currently out of stock at the same place, and they will only send both when they have them in inventory). I took the original part, modeled it and printed it in TPU shore 98A.

We mounted it yesterday with my son, and it works. Not sure how long it will work, but at least that's a temporary solution (I'm actually curious to know about how long it last).

Found recently a video that caught me curious...
How we BUILT a 3D printer that can print ANYTHING! - YouTube

It's not yet on the market, it's small build volume, it's pricey, but SLS to that price it is still highly interesting and would give many possibilities... And if this works as advertised, it may just disrupt the market like the Bambu Lab X1C did, which could be quite interesting with a lot of evolutions in a very few years to come...