Many things have happened since I last wrote here, but few that affected the store or the products directly.
Late last year I quit my day job, partly so I could focus more on this business. I still have a few essential things to sort out, so I’m still working what amounts to a full-time job, but that’s for a limited time. By the end of March, I should be able to dedicate myself to designing and selling CNC machines, including the long-promised MegaRail-based machine.
As you probably noticed, some sizes of MakerSlide had been out of stock. Last November, the fabricator and I realized that there had been some confusion, and they produced less MakerSlide than I had ordered, so they had almost none left to cut for me. I had a new batch extruded, and it arrived, unannounced, last week.
That’s eight pallets of MakerSlide and T-slot extrusion on my driveway. I had to scramble to get it out of the rain (and snow) and into the garage immediately.
First, I built one of these:
That’s a pallet, some plywood, six or seven lengths of CLS timber, about 80 screws, some wood glue, and three or four hours of my time. By storing the rail vertically, I can load four to six pallets worth of MakerSlide into the space taken by a single pallet — and it’s easily accessible too.
Here’s the new, larger rack (on the right) with the contents of six of those pallets, plus most of the older stock; and the old rack with the remaining two pallets and a lot of empty space (which I’m going to use for MegaRail 80). The shorter lengths of MakerSlide are stacked vertically in twos and threes, to save space. Thankfully, the MakerSlide profile makes this arrangement quite stable. In fact, when I moved two years ago, I hired a van with a tail lift, I borrowed a hand pallet truck, and I loaded the smaller rack straight into the van, with some 500 m of MakerSlide on it (and plenty of packing to keep it from moving about).
All MakerSlide sizes are available: 250 mm, 375 mm, 500 mm, 750 mm, 1000 mm, 1500 mm, 2000 mm. We still can’t cut custom lengths, but we’re getting there.
20 mm × 40 mm T-slot extrusion is also back in stock in all sizes: 435 mm*, 560 mm*, 670 mm, 810 mm*, 920 mm, 1060 mm*, 1420 mm. The odd lengths are because that is what we need for the various sizes of eShapeoko; it doesn’t make economic sense to stock other lengths. Sizes marked with an asterisk are also available with pre-drilled access holes for blind joints, as required for the “deluxe” eShapeoko frame.
One more thing: we’ve got some very nice 625-2RS bearings, with less axial play than all I’ve seen elsewhere, including some fairly expensive brand-name bearings. Standard 625 bearings tend to be quite loose, even those used inside NEMA 17 motors (those are preloaded, though). All eShapeoko kits now include the upgraded bearings at no extra cost. The better spec bearings should translate into more rigidity in the YZ and XY planes.
The new bearings are also available in the shop.
