Return of the tool-oriented inventory comparisons
Bryan Bishop
Last month, I posted a comparison of fablab, techshop and emachineshop
tool-based inventories:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_frm/thread/b127467203638516/542dcd89c24c5cbb?lnk=gst&q=comparison.html#542dcd89c24c5cbb
http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/comparison.html
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Inventory
fenn has played around with the lists a bit, he's thrown them into a
YAML format, and kind of spiced things up-
http://fennetic.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=skdb.git;a=blob_plain;f=inventory/comparison.yaml;hb=HEAD
Here's an excerpt from the emachineshop section:
"""
urls:
- http://emachineshop.com/
- http://www.emachineshop.com/machine-shop/templates/emscss/images/site/block_logo.gif
- "fenn's best guesses about emachineshop's equipment inventory"
bulk shape creation:
- die caster
- investment caster
- plastic extruder
- compression molder
- injection molder
- FDM goo squirter (reprap equivalent)
joining:
- mig welder
- tig welder
- spot welder
-
parting:
- blanking press
- fine blanking press
- die cutter
- CNC shear
- wire EDM
- laser cutter
- plasma cutter
- waterjet
- photochemical milling machine
- metal band saw
- glass cutter
deformation:
- drop forge
- stamping/drawing press
- vacuum former
- CNC sheet metal brake
- CNC wire former
- coil winder
-
material removal:
- surface grinder
- jig borer
- CNC lathe
- CNC milling machine
- drill press
- sinker ECM
- sinker EDM
- CNC turret punch
surface treatment:
- spray booth
- sandblaster/beadblaster
- vibratory finisher
- buffing/polishing wheel
- metal brusher?
- powder coat oven
- plating/anodizing tanks
- silkscreen machine
"""
Ideally, we could do a comparison of inventories of different shops
for different capabilities- ponoko, shapeways, and a few others still
need to be added, I think it would be interesting to add a typical
kitchen and a typical molecular biology lab, for instance- if anybody
wants to contribute a full inventory of their bio lab, that would be
neat.
So what do we presently have, as a community? We certainly have the
gel box generator, and we might be working on a gel imager thingy if
Kim ever gets back to us-
http://groups.google.com/group/diybio/msg/3c7c0b42a5cd6924
(and there's also the power supply stuff)
So we're slowly fleshing out these lists with actual open hardware
projects. Kind of neat to look at, but it's still a work in progress.
Okay, back to work-
Bryan Bishop
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vern Graner <ve...@txis.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Robotgroup] Fwd: Return of the tool-oriented inventory comparisons
To: The Robot Group Mailing List <robot...@puremagic.com>
Bryan Bishop wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It would be neat to also add "electronics workshop" to the inventory
> comparison. ;-)
No sooner asked than done! ;)
I researched and wrote about this very topic, starting with an idea I
touched on for the "Appetizer" column in the August 2007 issue of
SERVO magazine. The article was entitled "Recovering our Technical
Literacy" and in it I first mentioned a concept I called "Habitat For
Hobbies":
http://www.notepad.org/RecoveringOurTechnicalLiteracy.pdf
The idea was that all hobbies need a place to "live". For the
electronics hobbyist, this "habitat" is the workbench. This lead to a
two-part series of articles published in Nuts and Volts magazine. The
first was published in June of 2008:
http://www.notepad.org/HabitatForHobbies-PT1.pdf
This article introduced the concept, went over some details and closed
with a challenge. I asked users to submit their ideas for all the
equipment needed to transform an empty table into a electronic
hobbyist workbench -- BUT -- the kicker was to do it all for $100 or
less!. I got lots of great responses that I detailed in my September
2008 column:
http://www.notepad.org/HabitatForHobbies-PT2.pdf
I then posted the winning proposals and all the additional entries on
the Nuts and Volts online forum here:
http://forum.servomagazine.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8370
This topic actually received a nice comment from none other than the
famous Forrest M. Mims III himself!
http://forum.servomagazine.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8370#p61169
So, yes, the typical inventory of an electronics hobbyist workbench
has been covered fairly recently and with some detail. :)
Vern
--
Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE | "If the network is down, then you're
Senior Systems Engineer | obviously incompetent so why are we
Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
http://www.txis.com | is up, then we obviously don't need
Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" (c)VLG
_______________________________________________
Robotgroup mailing list
Robot...@puremagic.com
http://lists.puremagic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/robotgroup