Last night, I attended the launch of the Shapeoko 2 from Inventables in Chicago:
My photos
https://plus.google.com/photos/117542001281850354871/albums/5937700355206181585
Introductory video from designer Edward Ford:
Shapeoko 2 is a simple, low cost, open source CNC milling machine kits that can be built over a weekend. Assembly is required before you can use it.
This is version 2 of the fastest selling CNC machine in the history of the world. The machine has been under development for the last five years. Edward Ford has been designing, redesigning, and building what he hoped would be a CNC machine that anyone can build. This machine is by far his best one yet.
Note: There is also further information about the machine, kits, kit contents and other things on this blog post.
The designer of the Shapeoko 2 told us that "community is the reason that this machine exists". I'm happy to know that the "fastest selling CNC machine in the history of the world" is Open Source:
Open Source
This product is part of an open source project started by Edward Ford. Inventables always works with and supports the original creators of open source designs when we sell their creations. In this case Edward earns a portion of each sale for each unit sold. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Inventables is taking an interesting approach to preorder:
Preoder Bonuses: Preorder now and receive add-on bonuses detailed below at no additional cost if each preorder threshold is met. Everyone that orders during the preorder campaign will get all the bonuses that are reached. For example if you are the 301st person to order you will get all the bonuses and so will the 1st person that orders. If 201 people order than everyone will get the rewards from the 3 bonus tiers reached. See below for details
Anyone own a Shapeoko or have plans to get one? Are there other Open Source CNC mills that folks here like?
Thanks,
Drew