While pondering making stuff to sell at a farmer’s market, I started wondering if you could actually bring the Maslow along for the ride. It would be very cool to be able to personalize things right on the spot with a quick name or team logo.
Having no current Maslow experience, I was just wondering what all you would need to take a fully functional Maslow on the road. Obviously, you’d need power for the laptop. I know that the preferred routers are 110V. With the new battery powered tools coming out, I wonder if you could adapt something in the 18V-20V range.
What additional power supply would you need for the rest? Could this be adapted for a large 12V AGM battery? Inverters are really inefficient, but if you only needed power for 4 hours, would it be doable? I’m assuming that Bar had 110V power at the booth at BAMF.
The laptop and Maslow motors could probably run from a largish car battery for the few hours that a farmer’s market runs. The noise of the router might be an issue, though?
If all you were doing was engraving, you could probably get the work done with one pass, eliminating the need for the Z axis. Those battery powered tools are pretty nice, and will run for a good length of time on one charge. Doing the engraving on site would surely attract crowds, maybe not all happy though.
7 days ago Bar took a Maslow to the Bay Area Maker Faire! A Maker faire is filled with distractions and alot of noise, Maslow is perfect for that! Maslow CNC at Maker Faire Bay Area - YouTube
But for a Saturday/Sunday morning shopping experience with my neighbors and local farmers is peaceful…its a beautiful thing man! Noise would ruin the day for most. Plus various safety concerns, and needing extra space in case something goes wrong, I wouldnt… but hey if you think it will make you a bunch of money
Yeah, I’m just thinking of the logistics of customer retention, etc. I guess you could take a deposit, then either promise to meet them back here next week or have them swing by the shop in a few days to pick up their personalized product.
I’ve worked boat show booths for years and if I had a dollar for every time someone said they’d be back to buy something, I’d be buying boats instead of building them…
@LakeWorthB Good idea, but even if the portable frame was enclosed in a box to minimize the noise, how long until you personalized their large personalized item?
@MidnightMaker Do you normally hand out cash to strangers with fold up tables - or cnc frames for that matter? I think if you show enough examples and have reviews of previous purchases and works of art, your local community will connect with you outside of the expo to get a personalized item made. But what would be easier in my opinion, is to create art that many people can relate to. Farmers Markets near me always sell CNC’d items that say their local “City Name” “Blessed” “Family” “Home” and cheesy things like that. Just Consider your type of customer, and make a bunch of stuff you think they would like. Maybe you will inspire one of them to put in a custom order
If you are engraving, you need the Z axis more than ever, otherwise you need to
retract and lower the bit one time for each letter (and not move the router
while it’s lowered.
with the router turned down to a slow speed, it’s surprisingly quiet. And when
we switched from a spiral bit to a single-tooth stright bit, it got much
quieter.
