There’s been a snag with the delivery of MakerSlide. Harry is sorting it out, but it means I won’t receive it until later this week, instead of last week. Batch Four has been waiting only for the MakerSlide, so it will ship early next week.

A few things still need to arrive for Batch Five: MakerSlide (see above), laser-cut parts (due this week), bearings (half of them in stock, balance due by the end of next week), machined spindle mounts (on the 28th of March). We haven’t packed anything for Batch Five yet, but I’m preparing my little helpers for a few long nights.

NEMA23 motors are finally on their way to us from the factory, and should be here this week.

Lastly, I dropped the ball quite egregiously with the store orders. I haven’t posted anything ordered last week yet. I apologize. I’m packing them tonight, and I’ll post them tomorrow morning.

In order to save time packaging the eShapeOko kit, I’m thinking of eliminating some work that can be viewed as essentially pointless.  Specifically, I’m talking about the way we pack the fasteners, spacers, and the other small components.  Right now, with a few exceptions, every one of the about three dozen small part types goes in its own, individually labelled little zip bag.  I would keep doing that for a few parts (the washers, for instance), but everything else can safely go in a few larger baggies.

A few people commented that the packaging was “like LEGO”, but that’s not quite true.  LEGO pack all the parts in a couple of bags, not each part type in its own bag.  I would pack all the spacers in one bag; the screws in two bags (small ones and large ones); washers still each type in its own bag, because they’re hard to tell apart and fiddly to separate; and all other small parts in another bag.  I would include a 1:1 cheat sheet of all the parts, to help if someone had a hard time telling them apart.

Do you think this is a good idea?  I’m talking especially to current eShapeOko owners: would you have liked it less if the parts were in seven or eight bags instead of almost 40?

Please note that this is for Batch Five onward; Batch Four is already packed (for the most part) in the old style.

The last two items for Batch Four just fell into place: the UPS man just delivered the T-slot insertion nuts, and Harry called to tell me that the extrusion is ready and will be delivered tomorrow or day after.  This means that Batch Four kits (orders placed until the 30th of January) will ship early next week.

I’m back home, more tired than when I left.  A small pile of orders is waiting to be picked, packed, and posted.  They’ll go out tomorrow.

I’m always trying to make the eShapeOko kit better.  I made three changes:

• Thicker nylon spacers.  They have 50% larger cross-section, so they should help make the X carriage more rigid.
• New belt clamps.  The kits now come with laser-cut belt clamps which take M5 screws and nuts to tighten.  They are a neater solution than the zip ties.
• Redesigned belt tensioners.  The new ones are longer, and instead of a half-circle cut-out for the head of the top X rail screw, they now have a large round hole.

All kits from the third batch got the new belt clamps instead of the zip ties (a pleasant surprise, I hope), and some got the new belt tensioners.  The fourth batch will get the thicker nylon spacers, too.

Speaking of spacers, I have a sample of aluminium spacers on their way to me.  If they’re good, they’ll go in the store as an upgrade.  Aluminium spacers help make the X carriage even more rigid, and they allow the bolts to be tightened much more without fear of squeezing the spacers.  I’ll offer them in kits for dual-X (twelve 25.4mm spacers plus two 6.35mm spacers) and individually.  I haven’t ordered any 19.05mm spacers in aluminium, because they’re used only for the single-X (no point in making the single-X carriage more rigid) and for the spindle mount (where nylon is perfectly fine).

Also on their way are Pololu drivers (green, black and the new purple ones), emergency stop push buttons, and a few other little things.

We now have the new end plates that allow the eShapeOko to be extended in the X direction.  As an important bonus, the machine is now open to the front and the rear, so you can machine long objects even on a small machine.

This image shows how they are used.  You can now stretch the machine by lengthening the X MakerSlide, the X belt, and the two connecting members for the new plates.  The part number for the new end plate is EM-LXP.  As you can see, it’s not identical to Edward’s new end plate.  It has the two eShapeOko belt anchor slots, plus one for the belts-on-top configuration currently used on the X axis.

I’ve just added three NEMA17 motors to the store: one 0.9° per step, and two 1.8° per step (the most powerful I could find, and a lighter one).  I also added a 0.9° NEMA23 motor (small for a NEMA23, but twice as powerful as the NEMA17), but that’s not in stock yet.

I also added a very nice 24 V 5 A power supply.  It’s a laptop-type power supply: a completely enclosed brick, with no vents or fans — a plus if you’re producing dust and chips.

I put the smooth idler wheel kits and buildlog.net arduino-compatible stepper shields (bare PCBs and complete kits) back on sale.  They will be shipped on the 26th of February.  I also listed the 3/4″ and 1″ spacers that have been out of stock for a while, but they will ship at the end of the month.  Still working on the V-wheels and eccentric spacers.

All Batch Three eShapeOko kits are now packed and booked for collection today.

It’s 3:40am.  Need sleep!

We got the remaining MakerSlide from Harry Raley yesterday.  I checked it for dings and other flaws, marked them out, then I worked out a cutting plan around the defects.  I’m going to cut it now.  All the other parts have been here for some time, and they are counted and packed.  We’ll put the rail in the boxes tonight, and book the packages for collection by the couriers on Monday.

The eShapeOko kits are back on sale, with delivery by the end of March (hopefully sooner than that, but no promises).  There’s a new option: the “open” end plates, very similar to Edward Ford’s “new end plates”.  They will be available separately too, as soon as I manage to get a few pictures and write some instructions.

We’ve had a problem with the store, where registration did not work.  It should be fixed now.

We’re working to pack and send the third batch (the MakerSlide is finally on its way to us — sorry for the delay), and the fourth batch looks on time for the beginning of March.

We’re slowly getting better at this, but I might end up writing some form of stock keeping application myself anyway.  Several of the products share parts, which means simple software that thinks, for example, that we have a number of stepper shield bare PCBs and another number of stepper shield kits doesn’t really work.  What we really have is a number of PCBs and a number of baggies of parts, and when someone buys a kit, they get a PCB and a bag of parts, reducing the stock of bare PCBs available.  And that’s a simple example: it gets more complicated with V-wheels, idlers, bearings, MakerSlide, eShapeOko kits with options, open end plates and so on.

By the way, more stepper shields are on their way from Reactive Substance and should be here in a few days.