30 year, Cabinet making veteran. New to CNC. I have known about Maslow for a while now. Big Fan
Laid off last week, now on fire to restart my cabinet / furniture business asap to get revenue coming back in..
I’m contemplating a machine for my one car garage sized, one man shop.
I need it to do the sheet goods grunt work, and having 4x8 capacity is game changer for me.
I realize cut times are way slower than say a Shapeoko or Hass, or Weekie CNC machines, but the extended cut times allow for me to do other tasks. So I’m planning to use the Maslow as a force multiplier.
Questions:
I’m planning to use Maslow Vertically. I hope folks are still finding this doable and accurate?
I have been doing some reading here, and am mildly flummoxed regarding the amount of space I’ll need to set aside for the 4x8 cutting capacity. Obviously 4x8 at a minimum. Most vertical frames I’m seeing look to be approx 10x8. Has this size been settled on as being “best practices?” Is 15-20 degrees still commonly used as default angle for the vertically aligned Maslow?
How about software? Is anyone using Carbide Create as their CAD/CAM?
I’m hoping to be using the Maslow mostly to cut accurate cabinet parts . I’ll for sure branch off into other projects with it, once my CNC chops start to develop. But for now, I’m needing to get up and running as soon as I can. Placing an order for a 4.1 kit soon after my last check from my former employer clears.
I generally try to steer folks away from Maslow for production / cabinet work. It’s not really designed to be used that way.
The issue isn’t really speed, Maslow is now as fast or faster than most of those machines, but it’s still very much a DIY robotics project and for production work you probably want something that just works every time.
That being said Maslow is super cheap and if you are looking for a way to mess around with CNC at the lowest possible price we can’t be beat there.
Our goal isn’t really to compete with something like ShopBot that is designed to be used that way, our goal is to offer something dramatically cheaper and more accessible to everyone.
I used to use it and loved it. I’ve been switching away and developing a free CAD/CAM option, but I had not complaints about carbide create
What precision and accuracy do you need for your cabinet parts? I don’t know what Maslow cut accuracy and precision are for a 4’ x 8’ sheet. But would be good to know so your expectations are informed for a great build experience, and great operating experience.
Personally like this image I copied from another forum:
The maslow has historically been a how accuracy high precision machine, with the maslow 4 we are hoping that that improves, but we are still struggling with reliably finding the anchor locations, and with bad enough anchor locations it isn’t going to be precise.
The one nice thing about a high precision, low accuracy machine is that when you are doing the same thing many times, you can compensate for the errors in your design
But the bigger problem with trying to build a business around the maslow is the machine durability, it’s plastic against plastic movement, and that is not going to last long term. Now, it may last long enough to boostrap your businsess (one maslow 1 I purchased was from an architect firm, they used it, wore it out, and then upgraded to a machine that cost >$10k because they then knew exactly how valuable it would be to them)
As an inexpensive way to test your workflow, you could do far worse than a maslow, but don’t put yourself in a position that if the maslow gives you grief, it will backrupt your business.
Spit balling… Could optional vision based calibration assist web page help (e.g. javascript opencv, uses the phone’s Camera and CPU)?
not really, the problem with vision based calibration is what do you use as a
reference.
The author of WebControl tried to go this route with a camera in the router
collet referencing a grid. His biggest problem was getting an accurate grid. He
found that going to people who print banners and having them print the grid
resulted in a printout that was distorted significantly along the long axis
We have some ideas on how to proceed with this, but are not there yet.
see the discussions in
it turns out there has been some interesting work in the industry and academic
research on managing cable-driven robots and calibrating them. Ways that are
both faster and that better estimate accuracy than the current proccess (and may
even be able to figure out the Z offsets rather than us having to enter them)
I think what I’m looking for is a “force multiplier” for my shop. I’m a one man shop, In a one car garage. So the volume would be right in the Maslow wheel house, for a while at least. Long enough to help me get set up for more sophisticated equipment. Should last a year or three, right?
