Talk:Fab@Home:Materials Tips

From Fab @ Home

I have been trying to source acrylic sheets and then the machining. One local supplier has quoted $550 (Australian Dollars) - about $300 for the tinted acrylic and $250 dollars for the cnc routing (according to the templates supplied on this site). If I wanted it clear it was only $450.

Even so, this strikes me as expensive, especially in relation to the overall machine. Looking at the prices of the linear actuators and the 4-axis amplifier, these are really pushing the price up. I suspect by the time I price in all the little bits, freight etc the price will exceed the $US2,200 estimated here.

Does anyone know if this is a reasonable price for the acrylic - in US dollars tinted would be about $475 ($A550). They did say that 5 or more would bring it down to about half the price.

The acrylic in the bill of materials calls for translucent acrylic. The photos on this site (compared with suppliers' colour samples on the net) indicate it is actually tinted transparent. Can anyone comment?

Has anyone tried building this to run from 240v - is it just a matter of changing the power supply in (ie transformer) and the plug type? Are there likely to be overheating issues?

Thanks in anticipation Peter McKellar (Australia)