| Thanks for the response. | | I'm in the preliminaries of putting together the game plan but | here's what I have: | | [1] How big are the house panels and what materials in what sizes | and || shapes are you wanting to cut? | | standard 4'x8' sheets | || [2] Do you want to automate just the cutting - or do you want || assembly, too? | | initially no until I can prove the market and am up and | running and more experienced with which tools justify their cost | || [3] What is your panel per day/hour/minute/second target? | | again - too early to tell | || [4] How much are you _willing_ to spend? :-) | | how long is a piece of string? I was looking at initial | start-up of between $50k - $100k to include everything. I'd prefer | something a little more labour intensive at the start and then | upgrade at a later date. | | My last business was a stainless shop and I made the mistake of | following my ex-partner's suggestions on what tools to purchase, we | bought all new equipment which most of we barely used or could have | purchases on the used market for 25% .... but we still made very | nice breweries. So am trying to get a feel for what is out there | (prior to sticking my foot in my mouth) and what each level of | automation costs/ production output.
Darryl...
You might take a close look at used ShopBot CNC routers. I've seen 'em offered for as low as US$2K (once) and a number of times in the $6K ballpark. The PRT-96 standard machine can handle 4x8 sheet stock and can handle internal cut-outs.
Having taken that close look, it might pay you to lurk at the CNCZone forum and learn how to build your own machine - it's not as difficult as you'd probably imagine. I think you could probably design and build a combination saw/router CNC machine for an amount around $2500 if you shop carefully. OTS motor controllers make it relatively easy to use inexpensive control software (I'm not sure if there's freeware available; but it'd be worth looking for.)
Typically, you'd create a DXF (drawing) file and feed that (or a converted version of that) to your control software, which would then control the cutting to produce what you'd drawn. No magic required; and relatively little cash needed.
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
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