£250 vacuum former kickstarter

#1

£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?

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Tools for a project
#2

Q: how easily could we make this ourselves?

A: But we don’t have time to make everything ourselves!

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#3

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.

#4

Or we can build a thing to sit atop of the screen printing vacuum table for make multi use fun!

#5

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

#6

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
#7

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!

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#8

Maybe we should consider it?

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#9

This looks awesome!
Let’s get it!!!:blush::blush::blush::blush::blush:

I can see stuff to use for that.
Could be a real crowd pleasure too (enthising to prospective members)

#10

Phone cases on demand is a sure winner if we ever do stalls anywhere

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#11

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? :slight_smile:

(ironically my grandad showed me his makeshift vacuum former, made years before instructables was even a website :stuck_out_tongue: I had just bought the formbox as well heh. Apparently he used to use an electric fire to melt the plastic @-@)

3 Likes
#12

sounds very interesting. i’ld love to try this out.

#13

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.

#14

That sounds really cool.
Ild definatly like to see that.

#15

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
#16

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
#17

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.

#18

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
#19

I’m pretty excited about this too!

Kickstarter is a dangerous place for makers… My pocket cried when I started looking at Mr Beam!

#20

Bumping this as a batch available next March…price increased I believe