£250 to get one by June next year (includes 30 sheets of plastic and some casting resin. bring your own hoover to power it).
Are we interested?
Q: how easily could we make this ourselves?
A: But we don’t have time to make everything ourselves!
2 Likes
Is this the same guys that approached us last year? [quote=“Dermot, post:2, topic:1845”]
Q: how easily could we make this ourselves?
[/quote]
I was thinking about doing something with a toaster / space heater and vaccum at some-point in the future. These are really simple devices really.
Or we can build a thing to sit atop of the screen printing vacuum table for make multi use fun!
I’ve posted a few instructables ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-Small-Format-Vacuumformer-from-an-Old-T/ ) about making one of this when we talked about vacuum forming last year. I was really tempted by that project but even if £250 kind of reasonable for an all made one, it’s still really expensive for the size of sheets you can use . What about creating a raise up money page for one and see who is interested to get one as this was clearly excluded from budget last time for lack of interest? Just a thought
This is indeed an issue but more problematic is the security level and conformity to regulation and such that I thought might cause problem with building such items ourselves. As you can see from the instructable it involve scavenging an old oven and I’m pretty sure that security/can we use this in the space will be a big NO NO but I might be wrong
Glad this got posted. I’m totally behind this. I’m actually a bit wowed by their whole thing.
I think it’s cheap enough that it makes sense to buy all they’ve learned vs. get round to making one ourselves at some point.
4 Likes
Crikey. Just looked on eBay to find out how much a proper one costs and they’re a lot more expensive than I thought they were!
3 Likes
Maybe we should consider it?
2 Likes
This looks awesome!
Let’s get it!!!
I can see stuff to use for that.
Could be a real crowd pleasure too (enthising to prospective members)
Phone cases on demand is a sure winner if we ever do stalls anywhere
1 Like
Hi everyone,
So I’ll be actually receiving a 2nd batch version of the Formbox! I was just going to write a post about it but saw that this thread existed.
I’d be happy to lend it to the Makerspace once it arrives in May, if peeps are still interested? 
(ironically my grandad showed me his makeshift vacuum former, made years before instructables was even a website 
I had just bought the formbox as well heh. Apparently he used to use an electric fire to melt the plastic @-@)
3 Likes
sounds very interesting. i’ld love to try this out.
The guy in the video, Ben, lives in Lewisham. Maybe we can get him over for a demo? He’s a good friend of someone at Transition Town Tooting, so we have a vague contact.
That sounds really cool.
Ild definatly like to see that.
I know members are talking about making a vacuum former over on another thread. But I still have a pang about us missing out on this Kickstarter. As a user friendly tool for the space it will be very interesting to have a look at/play with Kai’s FormBox some time after it arrives in May.
1 Like
Absolutely. I don’t think making one should exclude seeing/playing with the FormBox, which looks very nifty (just a bit small for what I want to be making), I aim to make the vacuum former long before May, so that may also generate more interest from other members in using one by the time FormBox is around, and a bit more clarity in what size is generally required.
(NB: The bigger one should be able to be adjusted for smaller projects too… hopefully)
2 Likes
Something has always niggled at the back of my mind about the form box.
I think it’s something about it being a bit of a tiddler.
I actually like the idea it s a tiddler, the bed size is the same as the ultimaker, so we can print things to form, without using a 4x larger sheet
1 Like
I’m pretty excited about this too!
Kickstarter is a dangerous place for makers… My pocket cried when I started looking at Mr Beam!
Bumping this as a batch available next March…price increased I believe