Woodworkers Journal - Industry Interview

[srwtlc]

http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/wwj/index.cfm/free.industryinterview

[ryan_slaback]

Good read. If you aren't already enrolled now might be a good time to add your name to the list of demo sites. There could be an influx of requests.

[dray]

enrolled?

[mgcain]

Nice Article...It IS about the community, as much as it is about the tools too...

[dubliner]

6000 units a year.. really?

[hines]

That's what I was thinking when I read it. 6000 units a year, that would mean the online forum membership is way under what it should be.

[dray]

That number cant be right??
I would say less than 10% of that.

They are spending time, effort and $$ in advertising. I think someone read the column back to someone else and they just said add another zero to that lol..

The reason I see that cant be right is that the cnc doesnt do g code so the customer base really would be coming here to the forums to learn more.

If it did do g code then I could see furniture and cabinet manufacturers buying bulk cnc's and they would have no need to come to these forums.

But it is a great cnc and a great community

[stevem]

The elves must be working overtime to build and ship 16 machines per day. Obviously they’re not unionized.

[joecmay]

Danny
G code be dammed. We are the cabinet company that has 12 machines based on the shopbot and what we like is that it does not use just G code. The shopbot code is soooo flexible like basic we were able to take 800 programs and turn them into 8 programs that can do 8000 different items. variables and user input statments are the key. You can do parametrics on big iron but it must generate new code for each change taking up drive space or controller memory. I have 1 guy who codes for me who took 13,000 standard items for our cabinet doors and turned it into 2 programs try that with big iron. we have what you would call a big iron machine worth $150,000.00 we have had it 4 years it took 3.5 years to pay for it. One our custom built $35,00.00 5 x12 shopbot with clamp bed, vac bed and 16 position auto tool changer, pays for itself every 7 weeks. we are in the process of building 7 more machines based on the shopbot in the next 3 months.

[bill.young]

Hey guys,

I guess you've all figured out that the number in the article was a typo...600 a year is the correct number.

FYI, the current Shopbot Control software does run g-code files natively and also lets you mix g-code commands with ShopBot commands within the same file (though I'm dreading the day I get one of those files to troubleshoot!).

Bill

[paco]

Shopbot control software is bilingual... like me!

[henrik_o]

Interesting article, and very interesting to hear Joe Mayo comment on it here. I've thought about the shopbot v. big iron angle, and my preliminary conclusion so far (built on insufficient experience I must add) is that speed-wise I'm not running my new PRS appreciably slower than older machines I know of that cost ten times as much.

The really big difference so far seems to be that they have automatic toolchangers and I don't. Well, that and the sales model.

[dray]

Heya Joe!

By no means did I mean that G code is better..
Just more people using G-Code that Shopbot code.

You guys do incredible work, how do you keep your cool while running all of that?

I have a small shop and am constantly battling fatigue! Must be a smooth system that you have there.

I admire your business.

Danny Ray

[joecmay]

Danny
We found that shopbot code is more flexible for our company when you take into account all the custom work we do. To the automatic tool changer, the big cost is the spindle @ $6-8 K for the small shop can be cost prohibitive. the carrier for the tools can be built for $2500 to $3000, we have built 2 that have been in use for 2 years.

[mikek]

Neville, I think that may be total installed base. That would equate to about 23 systems/day going out the door assuming no holidays!