I'm thinking about starting up a small cnc shop here at my home in Brownsburg IN. Brownsburg is quickly becoming the motorsports capitol and has recently grown rapidly with NHRA, INDY and sprint car equipment manufactures and teams.
I'm hoping some of you that have cnc shops and/or are employed at those shops could give me some basic info on a small foot print cnc workcenter, the types of CAD/CAM software you use and maybe some of the support equipment you need/use ? (I noticed in a cnc search of the forum that BadMatt, Kwhizz and Charley had some preferances on machines and such - could you share ?)
Any thoughts, help, guidance or links to other information will be greatly appreciated.
I'm probably not much help, but I just wanted to chime in and say how surprised I was at the number of race teams in and around Brownsburg. One of my buddies has a small race shop that builds Mini-Sprints and John Godfrey builds their frames in Brownsburg along with Spike Midget and Sprint frames.
Just some perspective mainly from my friend with the race shop. He has focused on coming up with products for their race cars etc. that he can pay someone else to machine, making smaller margins up front, but proving the viability of the product. He's getting to the point where the volumes of his parts may warrant the purchase of a machine. Even the small machines are a pretty decent investment depending on the amount of business you can fill it with immediately.
Any - so much for my Mr. Obvious impression. I'm sure someone that has more valuable info to add will chime in.
Good luck - I've always wanted to have some machines to crank out custom parts!
That's kinda what I'm looking at doing is be a prototype/small run type of biz for some of the race teams or manufactures in this area that are focused on building their products - and who want to sub out their other part and jig needs to a small shop who can turn it quick. This area is exploding with motorsports opportunities and I'm only 2 miles up the road - so I'm hoping I can play a roll in helping this community grow (plus, like you - I could build some cool stuff for my project cars !!)
Jim, I would send some stuff you way! Plus think of all the cool parts for your car. I got the cd and your "retainer" surprise. That looks like such a cool project.
I'm not sure on the CAD/CAM package that would work the best. Most of the new machines (I think) have some sort of an interface to import certain file types. I have some past experience with ProE and Solidworks. My brother-in-law is a design engineer and is proficient in both. I can tell you that for most things he much prefers Solidworks. In reality for most types of parts, just about any 3D CAD package will suffice. He's is doing some pretty complex surface designs in both ProE and Solidworks.
If you want to talk in more detail about the CAD packages, I could get you in touch with him - he knows his stuff.
I design in solidworks and AutoCad depends on the complexity of the part and program with master cam. The thing is you are going to spend more on programs than you can get a machine for the full 3D surface milling version of master cam I use cost like $18,000 and solidworks or pro-e will cost you a couple grand min. Unless you are all ready a machinist I think it would be hard to start a shop from scratch and be efficient enough to make money at it. There is so much more involved in it then just having cnc machine. You still need manual macheins to do simple task that are to cumbersome to do in a cnc and you always need them to modify tooling and build setups I dont think I could do with out a bridgeport and small manual lathe no mater how many cnc's I have access to. If I were asked to set up a shop from scratch buy all the macheins and associated tooling I don't think I could do it for less than $75,000-$100,000 buying mostly used.
I had heard many people talk about Solidworks so I was leaning that direction. I have Autodesk QuickCAD that will let me export files in all the standard CAM formats. My neighbor is an engineer for Alcoa and uses ProE - but he too prefers Solidworks.
A little more info - I'm thinking about a tabletop scanner/mill for prototype (and maybe one that is powerfull enough to mill aluminum), and a Haas VF 2 or 3. I'm going to add a seperate building on the property - but I still want a small footprint like the Haas units above (10 x 10 x 10).
I had wondered if I'd need all the standard machine shop equipment (band saw, mig/tig, lathe, mill, grinders, etc.). Some of that I already have.
I checked on 5 and 6 axis work centers and that's really big dollars for a single owner/operator (400K) - but it's not that expensive relative to the capabilities and technology available with that type of machine.
I'm going to start it as a part time business - and then move over if/when/as business progresses.
You cant go wrong with Haas as far bang for the buck . I prefer to run a haas the the control is the most user friendly on the market. don't forget the cost of measurement and inspection equipment and all the other machine shop related tools
Solidworks for Designing.....Gibbs for CAM..........My advice is if you have Mastered the Art of being a Skilled Machinist, Taken Business Classes to understand "How" the System Works, and are willing to Risk everything you have worked for up to this point in your lfe.....Go For it.......
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