In coöperation with Colinbus (A Belgian CnC manufacturer), they presented the "Profiler".
for 1649,- euro (50 euro shipment and handling included), you get a CnC machine which is able to do 30 cm x 40 cm x 10 cm pieced.
The "catch" ? You have to assembly the machine yourself !
Because I allready had seen an introduction article of the Profiler, I allready discussed the possibility of buying such a CnC machine with my wife,
before the official announcement. So, I was the very first person to order the Profiler, I do have "REF 1" ;-)
(In the meanwhile, they allready sold over 1000 of this machines, they didn't expect that I would become such a huge succes, alldough some people
allready gave up, and re-sold there machines ... I think this is mainly because a lack of experience and/or a lack of persistence)
On the Elektor-forum, there is even a dedicated section for the Profiler, and there are a lot of other people, making nice things with this machine,
so that even Colinbus must admit that they are amazed by some of the results ;-)
After ordering the machine, I had to wait until april 2007, before they started shipping the CnC machines. I can assure you, it was worth the wait.
I had been lucky, because the machine did arrive when I had a few days off holidays. (I allways take some days off at the beginning of April,
because I never want to work on my birthday, lol)
So, at a rainy morning, at 9:50 AM, UPS arrived with the package. I directly started to order and count all pieces. There were a few mistakes, but
it turned out that the partlist-paper was wrong, and not the number of pieces. A few hours later (I can assure you, the CnC machine does
have LOTS and LOTS of pieces !), I finally started assembling.
Also, in the assembly-guide, there were quiet a few mistakes, but with some common sense and a healty brain (!),
I succesfully passed all these pitfalls ... At around 8:00 PM (20:00 for the European people), the machine was completely assembled, and did make
his first "movements" of the X-,Y- and Z-axis, without actually milling something. (they call it "dry milling" or "air milling")
Also take in account that I prepared a meal during the day (my wife was out to work), ate 2 times, and went to a local electro-shop to buy some
heat-shrinking wire. ("krimpkous" called in Dutch) So I guess I did not that bad after all ;-)
Picture of my profiler, sitting on my workbench ;-) I use 18 millimeters MDF for the baseplate.
I do mill out a rectangle of 1 mm deep, so I have a real flat and equal surface for my milling projects.
We decided that all was "good", and called it a day off. The next day, I tried to mill something ...
This all went seriously wrong ! The Colinbus software called "ColiLiner" was full of bugs ! (that's even an understatement)
The Z-axis went down with the speed of a falling brick, causing a "lock-up" of my drill-bit into the bottom-plate.
This happened several times within a few weeks, and finally damaged my CnC machine. I did have an enormous "wobble"-effect in the Z-axis,
and Colinbus did have to send me some replacement parts.
Because I was the first one to have a Profiler assembled and ready-to-run, I was on my own for this one, no help from "the internet".
I contacted the support-service from Colinbus, and on a day-by-day bases, I did found bugs (more and faster then they could fix) and reported them.
Allmost every day, they released a new version. Even on some moment, I became a "beta-tester". I was in direct contact with the developer(s),
and even during weekends and nights, we kept in touch ;-)
I must say, I never seen a developer with so much devotion working on a project. Ooh well, I have seen one, lol, myself, haha ...
(For those who don't know it, I now am an IT business-line analyst, but I used to be a software-developer)
A few weeks later, I was able to mill my first PCB ! (with the included FERM-tool)
I design my PCB's in Eagle, "mangle" them trough ColiLiner, and mill them with ColiDrive.
All went OK for a while, because I bought the CnC machine mainly to produce PCB's. But, at a certain moment, it became clear that I could do more
with the machine. I wanted to mill my own housings for my electronic projects. Such a "first housing" is the wooden frame with aluminium sheets,
for my 3D LED Cube (see the "Electronics" section for this). Since then I have come a long way. My favorite material to "mill", has become plexi ;-)
My biggest achiefment for the moment is my "Eifel Tower" (you will come to it, if you read trough this page)
I must say, after a while, when things become "familiar" (I learned all about milling / drilling / mill & drill-speeds etc ... on my own,
and with the help of the internet), I allways get the need for "pushing the limits a bit asside".
After a while I wanted to mill smaller PCB's, and mills with thinner traces and thinner spacings between
the traces. This is where the FERM-tool became the "bottleneck". So, somewhere in november 2007, I bought a new mill / drill - motor.
I ordered a KRESS FME-1050 from DamenCNC (A webshop, based in the Netherlands), along with some flute-mills.
It became clear that the Profiler could do a lot more and better to what I was used to ;-) My PCB's could contain more components, because I could
stack more (smaller) traces on them, and I could also work very accurate in Plexi.
A lot of people are complaining about the Profiler, but I'm sure it they would just spend a bit more time on reading about CnC milling in general,
and buying the right milling/drilling bits, and with a little help from various forums, they would become as good as the folks over on the Elektor forums.
I can state that this machine was the right choice for me, and I'm sure I'm gonna make a lot more nice "goodies" with it.
After all, not only beeing able to design and create your own electronic projects (and writing software for the microcontrollers), but also be able
to make your own housings, and mechanical constructions, with high precision, is something I dreamed of for some long time ...
And as you know, dreams come true sometimes ;-)
