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>> CNC machining at scale CNC machining is fantastic for prototypes and pretty awesome for high margin parts like hip implants and turbine blades. It is not for

by hef19898 4y ago

>> CNC machining at scale CNC machining is fantastic for prototypes and pretty awesome for high margin parts like hip implants and turbine blades. It is not for consumer devices. Figure out a way to cast your metal parts. Having a manufacturing back ground, I did extended workbench management early in my career, this is just wrong. Sure, at high volumes casting and injection moulding is unbeatable at per unit costs. At smaller volumes, not so much. Casting and moulding tools cost a fortune, and those upfront NRC are just prohibitive for small volumes. So smart CNC machining it is. Added benefit, there are tons of small CNC machining ships around that are really good at that. Nothing to add on ejector pin marks, if you see those on the outside of your part, your part design and manufacturing / tool design sucks. No need to be a billionaire genius, just a decent plastics engineer. But since the target audiamce of this article are start-ups, it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Brcause how many start-up founders have a solid grasp of hardware manufacturing, design, tooling and manufacturing processes? Especially those that want "Apple" without understanding what that means deffinitely don't.

samwillis 4y ago
> Casting and moulding tools cost a fortune It depends very heavily on the complexity and size of the part. Earlier in my career I worked in Medical/BioTech product development for a consultancy working with startups. We found the most cost effective route (in the UK) was to have tooling manufactured in China, but then shipped to the UK. We worked with moulding companies who had in house experience building and modifying tools, so they could make alterations to the tools on site. Tooling for small plastic "clam shell" type products would be in the £20k-£50k region by doing it that way. Being able to visit your manufacturing partner, as a small startup, is essential when launching a product. Too often physical product startups try to run before they can walk. You can always ship a tool back to China once you are up and running, but realistically at that point you know what v2 should be and retooling is required.
aaronbieber 4y ago
It stood out to me that the author of the post is the COO at a meditation service start-up, not a manufacturing one... Unless Ten Percent Happier is making physical products that I'm unaware of. I think this guy was just musing about Apple's quality and has watched a lot of AvE and This Old Tony on YouTube and wanted to share his opinions with the world. They're not all entirely correct. For anyone who wants to go on the whole manufacturing journey, don't miss the Linus Tech Tips video about why their screwdriver took 3 years to bring to market (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K5Gqp1cEcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K5Gqp1cEcM). And they based their design on a fully functional production-ready screwdriver, they did not start from scratch. Going from idea to production is really, really hard. Even today, even with CNC and 3D printing and other prototyping tools. Even with all the money LTT has to spend on it (millions of dollars, as I understand it).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kasperni 4y ago
  > It stood out to me that the author of the post is the COO at a meditation service start-up, not a manufacturing one... Unless Ten Percent Happier is making physical products that I'm unaware of. The guy started bolt.io. A VC for hardware based startups and got $100 million funding. So I think he knows a thing or two about manufacturing.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    He knows a thing or two about getting money to fund hardware start-ups. Which is something different.
  - KyeRussell 4y ago
    The assumption that the people that get growth-hungry “investors” to splash the cash in a cheap-money environment is what makes this a cycle.
  - LeifCarrotson 4y ago
    To give him the benefit of the doubt, he seems to be writing to people wanting to make small electronic gadgets. You can't sell something for $19.99 retail that requires a lot of hands-on time. At a quick scan, Bolt.IO includes "Carbon Robotics - Building intelligent robots for agriculture-related applications", "Denizen - Personal prefab offices...", and "Spyce - An original restaurant concept featuring a robotic kitchen that cooks and serves delicious meals". I guarantee those robots, office furniture, and kitchens contain CNCed parts, if not hand-fitted parts. On the other hand, he also wrote "What happened when Apple wanted to CNC machine a million MacBook bodies a year? They bought 10k CNC machines to do it." If a CNC machine can't make more than one piece every 3.5 days, you're either building aircraft or you're doing it wrong.
- baybal2 4y ago
  You need experience, and hands-on approach. "3 years, and millions of dollars" — is very typical when you keep going from factory, to factory, leaving tooling investment every time they screw up. Instead, you have to pick at least a sane, and understanding factory owner, and wait for them to improve.
CPLX 4y ago
For what it's worth the article is 8 years old. Has the CNC situation evolved since then?
- hef19898 4y ago
  If anything, it should have become better with improved machinery. Not sure what impact Covid had so...
hedora 4y ago
Even startups can hire manufacturing and industrial design consultants, then rent time at the same factories Apple uses.
johnwalkr 4y ago
I was OK with the section because includes "at scale", "consumer devices" and it ends with "Figure out a way to cast your metal parts." The advice is not wrong, just not complete. It would be better if it said "Machining might not be the best process, figure out the best way to make your parts -cast metal parts, use plate, sheet metal or simple extrusions, change metal for reinforced plastic, etc."
kitsunesoba 4y ago
Based on my meager experience in this area (mostly having been involved in the mechanical keyboard enthusiast scene where there's a lot of small-batch [e.g. 50-5,000 units] manufacturing), the killer for CNC machining is the complexity of the shape being machined and the tolerances desired. A simple flat rounded rect is relatively easy/cheap, but if you go for a more 3D sort of shape with complex curves cost will go through the roof. It's similar with tolerances, with large margins being cheap and low being high.
- heisenzombie 4y ago
  It’s so easy to turn a cheap part into an expensive part! The classic example, internal corners: Dimension them with convenient big radius and your feature needs a single pass with a big end-mill. Inadvertantly specify them “sharp” and suddenly it’s off for broaching (if you’re lucky) or maybe a custom EDM sinker tool.
FpUser 4y ago
Same experience here. When I needed to manufacture our product I quickly discover that casting at our scale would just ruin us financially. Meanwhile I shopped around and found very decent CNC deals. So CNC it was for me.

samwillis 4y ago

> Casting and moulding tools cost a fortune It depends very heavily on the complexity and size of the part. Earlier in my career I worked in Medical/BioTech product development for a consultancy working with startups. We found the most cost effective route (in the UK) was to have tooling manufactured in China, but then shipped to the UK. We worked with moulding companies who had in house experience building and modifying tools, so they could make alterations to the tools on site. Tooling for small plastic "clam shell" type products would be in the £20k-£50k region by doing it that way. Being able to visit your manufacturing partner, as a small startup, is essential when launching a product. Too often physical product startups try to run before they can walk. You can always ship a tool back to China once you are up and running, but realistically at that point you know what v2 should be and retooling is required.

aaronbieber 4y ago

It stood out to me that the author of the post is the COO at a meditation service start-up, not a manufacturing one... Unless Ten Percent Happier is making physical products that I'm unaware of. I think this guy was just musing about Apple's quality and has watched a lot of AvE and This Old Tony on YouTube and wanted to share his opinions with the world. They're not all entirely correct. For anyone who wants to go on the whole manufacturing journey, don't miss the Linus Tech Tips video about why their screwdriver took 3 years to bring to market (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K5Gqp1cEcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K5Gqp1cEcM). And they based their design on a fully functional production-ready screwdriver, they did not start from scratch. Going from idea to production is really, really hard. Even today, even with CNC and 3D printing and other prototyping tools. Even with all the money LTT has to spend on it (millions of dollars, as I understand it).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kasperni 4y ago
> It stood out to me that the author of the post is the COO at a meditation service start-up, not a manufacturing one... Unless Ten Percent Happier is making physical products that I'm unaware of. The guy started bolt.io. A VC for hardware based startups and got $100 million funding. So I think he knows a thing or two about manufacturing.
- hef19898 4y ago
  He knows a thing or two about getting money to fund hardware start-ups. Which is something different.
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  The assumption that the people that get growth-hungry “investors” to splash the cash in a cheap-money environment is what makes this a cycle.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  To give him the benefit of the doubt, he seems to be writing to people wanting to make small electronic gadgets. You can't sell something for $19.99 retail that requires a lot of hands-on time. At a quick scan, Bolt.IO includes "Carbon Robotics - Building intelligent robots for agriculture-related applications", "Denizen - Personal prefab offices...", and "Spyce - An original restaurant concept featuring a robotic kitchen that cooks and serves delicious meals". I guarantee those robots, office furniture, and kitchens contain CNCed parts, if not hand-fitted parts. On the other hand, he also wrote "What happened when Apple wanted to CNC machine a million MacBook bodies a year? They bought 10k CNC machines to do it." If a CNC machine can't make more than one piece every 3.5 days, you're either building aircraft or you're doing it wrong.
baybal2 4y ago
You need experience, and hands-on approach. "3 years, and millions of dollars" — is very typical when you keep going from factory, to factory, leaving tooling investment every time they screw up. Instead, you have to pick at least a sane, and understanding factory owner, and wait for them to improve.

CPLX 4y ago

For what it's worth the article is 8 years old. Has the CNC situation evolved since then?

hef19898 4y ago
If anything, it should have become better with improved machinery. Not sure what impact Covid had so...

hedora 4y ago

Even startups can hire manufacturing and industrial design consultants, then rent time at the same factories Apple uses.

johnwalkr 4y ago

I was OK with the section because includes "at scale", "consumer devices" and it ends with "Figure out a way to cast your metal parts." The advice is not wrong, just not complete. It would be better if it said "Machining might not be the best process, figure out the best way to make your parts -cast metal parts, use plate, sheet metal or simple extrusions, change metal for reinforced plastic, etc."

kitsunesoba 4y ago

Based on my meager experience in this area (mostly having been involved in the mechanical keyboard enthusiast scene where there's a lot of small-batch [e.g. 50-5,000 units] manufacturing), the killer for CNC machining is the complexity of the shape being machined and the tolerances desired. A simple flat rounded rect is relatively easy/cheap, but if you go for a more 3D sort of shape with complex curves cost will go through the roof. It's similar with tolerances, with large margins being cheap and low being high.

heisenzombie 4y ago
It’s so easy to turn a cheap part into an expensive part! The classic example, internal corners: Dimension them with convenient big radius and your feature needs a single pass with a big end-mill. Inadvertantly specify them “sharp” and suddenly it’s off for broaching (if you’re lucky) or maybe a custom EDM sinker tool.

FpUser 4y ago

Same experience here. When I needed to manufacture our product I quickly discover that casting at our scale would just ruin us financially. Meanwhile I shopped around and found very decent CNC deals. So CNC it was for me.