Don’t make fun of me.
I’m working on a few embellishments to my Anvil tools (sounds more impressive than it is) and also working on my CAD skills. I have designed an extension for the Finger of God and I am looking for an online CNC machine shop. I’ve only found Xometry.com and just wondering if this is good supplier or if there are others that you’d recommend. Picture for interest:
Xometry is an internet service that has a vast array of contract manufacturers that do the actual thing making, they don’t actually make anything themselves.
I’ve used them before for work related parts. It’s great if you know exactly what you want and to which tolerances, especially if you don’t have any contacts in that type of manufacturing.
There are limitations to what they can offer, so if you need some super specific machining or some crazy difficult tolerances then you’d be better off discussing these directly with a machine shop.
That’s what it seemed like. They have a cheaper ‘internationally made’ option.
This isn’t too complicated. I could do it myself in an afternoon but just have too many other projects. I also want to test the process of designing something and then having it made so I know what I’m in for when I do something more complicated. This piece is about 1-1/2" long and .750" wide and 1" tall with a few holes for pressed in locating pins.
I bet that will bid out for half as much if you don’t chamfer all of the edges and drill the threaded hole so that you can hand tap it later. It looks like a pretty simple 2 op piece without the chamfers.
Interestingly, it was only about 20% less. I want it in steel since it will be very close to brazing areas. It doesn’t make sense to remove features for so little difference.
I’m getting a cost of $150 for international made and Freecad calculates it at about 1.5in^3 of material.
I’ve heard of jlcpcb aswell, I have not used them but I’ve used their online quote tool and the prices seem reasonable.
I use PCBway for my random one-off CNC parts:
China has better material supply (most material comes from China) and is better set up to handle these small batch production. Hence, better pricing.
For US-made, (even though I’m in the UK) I’ve used pioneers in this field emachinshop agency in the past. Upload STEP files for quotes, and they have their own great simple 3D CAD program, too.
Might be worth checking Protolab’s US site, too.
These days, for CNC I mostly go to China, with In3Dtec for production parts (and metal printing), Andy’s prototypes (for small CNC volumes and 7005 parts), or via the agency, Rapid Direct.
All done with decent quality and speed, no problems.
Xometry seem pretty pricey in comparison. Xometry US, Xometry UK, Xometry EU, Xometry Asia.
We have some UK and EU agencies and companies, notably Fractory, doing this stuff, too, but pricing and shipping would probably be prohibitive.
Also Weerg (Italy), GetItMade (UK), Hubs/Protolabs (EU), Soch3D (EU), Fictiv (EU)
All the best,
Yes, it seems Xometry is about 3x the price quoted by PCBway quoted elsewhere in this thread.
Now I’m trying to figure out how to draw a groove around a curve so I can design Diacro dies!
Thanks everyone!
