I would absolutely love to have a vacuum former down at the hive. But regrettably, I don’t think I would be able to vote yes for it at this time.
It’s not just about costs, but space. Being the ex-warden for the fablab, We just don’t have the room in the fablab for the vacuum former without finding new homes for the printer and computers, and you’d still be squishing all the printers together. Let alone the extra spaces needed for the pump or shop vac. Combined with this being pretty noisy, I don’t think the vacuum former would be suitable in the fablab. I know we just got this new space, but with water issues in there and the time it takes to actually utilize the space, I feel like the vacuum former would bounce around a lot with no real home. Honestly I would have felt better about voting for a vacuum former if we voted for it after the new room started to get utilized to give more options for where we could put it.
As mentioned, the material is a bit of a problem as well. I spent 30 mins trying to find plastic to fit the first two machines, and these are the only two results I could find.
1217: Plastic sheet size: 15 1/4"x20 1/4"
1827: Plastic sheet size: 21 1/4’‘x30 1/4’’
So we need to buy these packs, or cut them down to utilize them in either of these machines. I was hoping I could find a vendor that sold sheets to specifications, but I couldn’t find one (not saying they are not out there, just couldn’t find them). It would be nice to have sheets on hand, but we’ve seen that the hive does not want to store materials for machines, nor do we want to have members buying the materials and selling them to members. If we were to get either of these machines, the only option I see is to allocate new space for vacuum form materials, or use the wood storage area for storing sheets (however the 1217 sheets would be able to fit in a standard membership storage box).
Another issue would be how much power it draws. I’m not an electrician, but we’ve had problems with the kernel compiler because of it’s heating element kicking on. I feel like we would have these same issues with the heating element of the vacuum former, and I’d like us to make sure we won’t have any issues with this before we put money down on it.
My biggest fear about getting a vacuum former right now would be that we get one, and if people can’t utilize it right away, people will regret buying it, and neglect it. This sort of thing kind of killed the energy around the big laser cutter when it arrived because it took a few months for us to even run power over to it, let alone getting it up and running.
If the vote does fail, but if people are still interested in having one, I wouldn’t mind helping take a crack at building a vacuum former. We can build it to the size we want, we can create custom frames for different sized thermoplastic, build a sturdy frame (some reviews keep telling me that the 1827’s frame isn’t very rigid). Plus it’ll be an excuse for me to use what I’m learning in project management =)