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Anybody has a good estimate of how much this kind of home fab can cost? I am trying to do this in my own apartment (its going very slowly heh) and I estimate it

by balsam 5y ago

Anybody has a good estimate of how much this kind of home fab can cost? I am trying to do this in my own apartment (its going very slowly heh) and I estimate it would be USD100000. USD10000 would be barely believable if I can get that broken electron microscope for the same price he did. ($1000). Seems like the vacuum system would be the most expensive part. Another one would be random consumables (vacuum grease, oil, chemicals etc). I am trying to start with the most trivial part from his videos, which seems to be the wirebonder, and thats already like a few hundred minimum.

kortex 5y ago
Depends tremendously on how good you are at scrounging. Assuming you have more time than money and know how to find fruitful sources (ebay is meh, local universities, local industry, electronics recylers, equipment auctions, and knowing a guy are the best ways to get cheap/free gear), you could probably do something like the z1 for a few grand. Sam's lab looks like it cost somewhere north of $10k, but south of $50k. But I mean that's like from empty garage with nary a multimeter to your name.
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  I also think this is the answer. People are amazingly good at finding discarded things that were once high-value and fixing them. People are amazingly good at scrapping things that are only a little broken, too.
JohnBooty 5y ago
Sam has a video where (among other things) he covers some of the ancillary equipment needed to run the electron microscope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJXio_jpc_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJXio_jpc_Y He doesn't mention costs directly, but this video covers the facts that they had to do some additional plumbing work, additional electrical work, there's a big-ass voltage transformer he had to acquire, etc. I also wonder how much the shipping costs were on that machine. Unless they were able to pick it up locally with a rented van, shipping alone might have exceeded the cost of the unit. Shipping pallets of fragile gear with specialized handling constraints is not cheap. My high school turned down a free electron microscope (a college was getting rid of it, I think) for reasons such as this. Even if you can get the microscope for free there are other costs, space requirements, etc.
rdtwo 5y ago
We had one in our middle school. Somehow they hired some genius engineer and he took over the basement and built out the electron microscope, radio station and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. It’s definitely doable and repeatable

by balsam 5y ago

kortex 5y ago

Depends tremendously on how good you are at scrounging. Assuming you have more time than money and know how to find fruitful sources (ebay is meh, local universities, local industry, electronics recylers, equipment auctions, and knowing a guy are the best ways to get cheap/free gear), you could probably do something like the z1 for a few grand. Sam's lab looks like it cost somewhere north of $10k, but south of $50k. But I mean that's like from empty garage with nary a multimeter to your name.

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
I also think this is the answer. People are amazingly good at finding discarded things that were once high-value and fixing them. People are amazingly good at scrapping things that are only a little broken, too.

JohnBooty 5y ago

Sam has a video where (among other things) he covers some of the ancillary equipment needed to run the electron microscope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJXio_jpc_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJXio_jpc_Y He doesn't mention costs directly, but this video covers the facts that they had to do some additional plumbing work, additional electrical work, there's a big-ass voltage transformer he had to acquire, etc. I also wonder how much the shipping costs were on that machine. Unless they were able to pick it up locally with a rented van, shipping alone might have exceeded the cost of the unit. Shipping pallets of fragile gear with specialized handling constraints is not cheap. My high school turned down a free electron microscope (a college was getting rid of it, I think) for reasons such as this. Even if you can get the microscope for free there are other costs, space requirements, etc.

rdtwo 5y ago

We had one in our middle school. Somehow they hired some genius engineer and he took over the basement and built out the electron microscope, radio station and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. It’s definitely doable and repeatable