Hi, i’m fairly new to CNC but it’s something I have been interested in for a while.
I have a little experience with laser-cutters but I want to have my own machine to make stuff, ideally furniture, as there’s no Ikea in my country which makes kitting out a house pretty pricey.
I have a reasonable amount of experience in digital cartography so if you have any projects involving maps I would be more than happy to help out acquiring data, sorting out vector line tracing and map projection issues.
Unfortunately I’m probably not going to be able to buy a kit in the next batch… any idea how long a break the team are taking? Is it worth holding off for a 6-12 months to see what improvements are planned. Shipping out this far is really pricey, so if there is a major change to the design (for example, the ring kit) I would probably need to fabricate my own version.
I’m looking forward to joining the community and becoming a proper maker.
Hello and welcome, there are allready several Maslows in New Zealand. Maybe no acces to Ikea is the reason for them as well, maybe you could start an Ikiwi store with maslows running the production.
Unless i’m mistaken, you can still buy one in this batch if you’re fast. I don’t think they have an idea of what to do after the break, but even if they would decide that they want to start again imediately, the lead time on the motors is around 3 months i believe, so i’m not expecting the next batch for at least another 6 months (i’m just a community member, got no inside info, just a calculated guess)
I payed $70 shipping, and another €118 import tax to Belgium. Still for a cnc that cuts full sheets if you add it up it is still a fraction of the competition.
Stay here and that will happen wether you want to or not
Note the smiley on the end of that comment. As CNC routers go, the Maslow is slow, so it’s pretty much agreed that it would not be the best for production work. Not trying to be a wet blanket here, but I want to make sure that no one is misled about the Maslow’s strengths and weaknesses.
I don’t neccecarily know about that, sure it wouldn’t be practical or efficient, but if the maslow is 10x slower then a standard cnc, but 50x cheaper, you can just buy 20 maslows and work twice as fast for half the money. (you would need a really big garage though )
Also, you would have to pay me royalties for the name
Hello. I already said this in another thread, but I’m near Christchurch, and a group of us have just ordered a Maslow kit. It’s on its way! We have no router and no frame, but Top Men are working on it. Top. Men.
Welcome! You can build your frame while you wait, and cruise the forums in anticipation. I have found that I have learned a ton about the Maslow as I have waited, first for our kit to arrive, then for a time when we weren’t doing other things that interfered with putting the kit together. Here’s hoping you get to start making sawdust a lot quicker than us!
Hello from across the ditch. If you can get your hands on an Ozito router, they’re cheap and you can easily add the Z axis by tapping the depth gauge sleeve with (from memory) an M10 tap, cut the head off a 150-180mm bolt attach the motor. We’ve had our top men working on this solution for some time now.
Yes. We have Ozito here from the forward invasion force, aka Bunnings. I’d like to see an example of the modifications before I try them myself. The Bosch looks attractive as it is cheap, and the photos and description of the mods are clear so I can copy them.
Having said that, next time I’m in Bunnings I’ll have a good look at the Ozito offerings and see if the modifications are obvious. They are a bit cheaper than the Bosch.
Yes, Bunnings. You will learn to love it as your old local hardware store becomes a distant memory of times past. Resistance is futile.
Now, you can see the z-axis bolt (about 150mm) passing through the re-purposed and tapped (M10 from memory) depth gauge hole. Other mods:
take the base plate off, use it as a template for the sled and discard
buy longer bolts to replace the base plate bolts so they’re long enough to pass through the sled. Unless you can find M4.5 bolts (what comes out), use M5s and tap the router holes out
remove the handles
remove the plunge springs (I didn’t try the set up with them in, so don’t know if this is needed)
you may need to put a sleeve around where the bolt is gripped by the shaft coupler
And I think that was about it. If the router isn’t on when you activate the z-axis, it will probably bind due to the asymmetrical force; the vibrations from the spinning router motor allow it to ‘wiggle’ up and down the plunge posts. At $79 AUD for the router, plus a few bucks for the bolts, it doesn’t come much cheaper. It also gives you and excuse to buy a tap and die set if you don’t have one. And guess who sells them…
It’s about 2/3rds the price of the Bosch, so less of a shame if it gets chopped up. I’ll have to get a good look at one in the store next time I am there. Hopefully they’ll have one out on display.
