Many people ask me why we don’t sell a “complete kit”, like the full kit offered by Inventables.<\/p>\n
Firstly, because our eShapeoko kit is configurable, the complete kit would have to be configurable too — so there would be not one single kit, but several variants.<\/p>\n
Our current stock tracking (built into CubeCart, the store software) does not understand that one part could be sold on its own, and also part of several kits. \u00a0In fact, I’m not aware of any online store software that does that out of the box. \u00a0Many, including CubeCart, can interface with external stock tracking software, but I haven’t been able to find something that did what we needed. \u00a0Without a software upgrade, we’d have to stock kits in each combination of options separately (which ties up capital and takes up storage space), or adjust the stock frequently by hand and\/or risk selling more of some parts than we have in stock.<\/p>\n
I can write the software myself, but I need time that I don’t have. \u00a0I would like to replace the store software too, but that is also time-consuming. \u00a0Inventables have at least a dozen people working for them; they have an office and a spacious room for their stock, and they contract out the kitting of the Shapeoko. \u00a0There are just two of us, doing this in our spare time, and we count and pack everything ourselves.<\/p>\n
While a “complete kit” is still some time in the future, we have tried to stock all the items you would need for a complete machine. \u00a0We have stepper motors (NEMA17 1.8\u00b0 40 mm<\/a>, 1.8\u00b0\u00a048 mm<\/a>, and\u00a00.9\u00b0 48 mm<\/a>; NEMA23\u00a00.9\u00b0 51 mm<\/a>), power supplies<\/a>, the Arduino Uno<\/a>, our own stepper driver shield<\/a>, Pololu stepper driver modules (green<\/a>, black<\/a>, and\u00a0purple<\/a>, with\u00a0white coming soon), stepper cable<\/a>, limit switches<\/a>, and a few other items. \u00a0If you’re after a cheap rotary tool, they can be had elsewhere online for very little money, and we can’t compete on price with them.<\/p>\n We plan to stock larger power supplies, DC spindles, a few types of end mill and engraving bit, switches, and connectors. \u00a0All those items, combined with a “what to buy” guide on the Wiki, should allow you to buy everything you need for a complete machine from us. \u00a0Ultimately, I feel that being able to choose what to include and what to leave out is better value than one fixed kit.<\/p>\nShare this:<\/h3>