A3 Marchant Dice Kit

[neo]

Thanks for the comments, now you've got me concerned!

I thought it looked fairly robust, it all appears to be well made, everythings rigid, tight and turns smoothly by hand. I've yet to get it going as I'm still trying to source a suitable PC for the shed.

As regards to his support, so far I've had fairly good relations with Kevin, I understand he's been away but he's sorted my initial problem fairly quickly. I've had no reason to phone him to date. I choose Marchant over the others as it was Uk based. I never thought they would n't support me.
I assume they will.....

I do have a minor issue but I assume its being sorted, I was fairly confident that I'd get mine going without any hiccups. (although I have emailed him this weekend to remind him )

I'm prepared to persevere but I'll bear your comments in mind...

Hopefully once its going I can show how good it is!..........or ?

Neo

[irving2008]

Gabi and Neo,

Thanks for your comments so far. Neo, impressed with you efforts so far, look forward to part 2 and on and the eventual running of your kit. Gabi, sorry to hear of your issues, hopefully your previous feedback to MD has been received and Neo won't have so many, and that you've managed to resolve them and got your machine working.

I'm saying this as a gentle reminder that the forum is a place to share information and knowledge and not to slag a supplier off. Its true that MD have had their ups and downs and detractors, but one person's experience may not mirror another's.

A small company like that is unlikely to have the research and development budget or the resources that an Ikea has on producing kits. I can tell you from personal experience that producing a kit that can be assembled out of the box is far more difficult than producing a finished article, and its probably true that their target market isn't the complete novice with no mechanical nous. So one should expect things not to be perfect, and work around them. Nevertheless it isnt unreasonable to get sufficient support to resolve issues.

Thanks for listening

[gabi68]

Hi,

1. I choose to buy my machine assembled not a kit. I decided that to avoid the assembly problems. Problems are almost the same.
2. I was thinking a forum it is made it to help people in their decision's to spend hard earned money. What I am posting it is NOT a negetive feedback for MD. It is my experince with that company and their product.
3. When you launch something in a kit form you must test that very hard and try to make that "stupid proof" almost 100%. If you choose to adopt M$ policy (launch a product and let customers to discover all bugs and after that write some SP-acks or better make another software ;)) you will end up to have a bunch of unhappy customers.
3. Even big company (Ikea) made mistakes. I just bought a coffee table from Ikea and when I try to assemble it I failed. I must spend 3 hours to put some pieces which manufacturer forgot to think about it.
4. I just try to help talking about my experince but after you post it that it is wrong. Sorry for posting my experince....

Good luck

[irving2008]

Hi,

1. I choose to buy my machine assembled not a kit. I decided that to avoid the assembly problems. Problems are almost the same.
2. I was thinking a forum it is made it to help people in their decision's to spend hard earned money. What I am posting it is NOT a negetive feedback for MD. It is my experince with that company and their product.
3. When you launch something in a kit form you must test that very hard and try to make that "stupid proof" almost 100%. If you choose to adopt M$ policy (launch a product and let customers to discover all bugs and after that write some SP-acks or better make another software ;)) you will end up to have a bunch of unhappy customers.
3. Even big company (Ikea) made mistakes. I just bought a coffee table from Ikea and when I try to assemble it I failed. I must spend 3 hours to put some pieces which manufacturer forgot to think about it.
4. I just try to help talking about my experince but after you post it that it is wrong. Sorry for posting my experince....

Good luck

Gabi,

Please dont misunderstand me, posting experiences are fine and thats exactly my point.

I certainly want to ensure that people reading these forums are given information on the pros and cons of a product or supplier. As long as it your experience and you explain what it was, how it was resolved or not then that is fine. There is a fine line between saying 'I had this experience' and 'Dont buy from XYZ, they are a bunch of xxxxxs' without hard unrefutable evidence. I just wanted to deflect any of the latter as we've had some bad experiences already of that on the forum with people slagging off products. Of course I realise sometimes these things are subjective, and one mans design etc.....

It is good to hear of your experience, and the fact that yours wasnt a kit, which wasnt clear to me before, makes it all the more concerning. I'll admit I have had an issue with the company in question myself, which was resolved satisfactorially, although I would have prefered that it didnt happen in the first place. That doesnt make them a bad company necessarily, but I agree once bitten etc... however I did go back another time and had a good experience. I've also had my share of bad experiences from Ikea, yet there are also good experiences and strangely we always seem to go back....

Don't let that stop you from posting, we all have a lot to learn from each other.

regards
Irving...

PS, I know what you mean about M$ but they are big and ugly enough to look after themselves.

[gabi68]

Ok, point taken. I'll agree I post some name's. Belive me I was (still I am) very upset about how THEY try to solve my problems. I already spend a lot of money and I still have to do some modification myself to have that router working.
If it is something which I strongly reccommend to anyone who want to step in CNC area is to read and build his own machine.
I have a CNC router almost ready (90% in design stage - many things to do) but I still having trouble to find a company who want to cut my parts at a resonable price.

RGDS
Gabi

[ptjw7uk]

I do not think all the problems we experience are always the companies fault.
It can be due to our having little or no knowledge to that of the companies who aften assume we, their customers know more than we actually do.
I'm afraid that even doing yourself can be a very slippery slope as there is so much we have to learn and sometimes just do not know what questions to ask. Even if you are supplied with instructions a small lack of understanding can lead to problems which could not be envisioned by more knowledgably people.
It would be nice gabi69 to know where you are situated!

Peter

[gabi68]

Hi Peter,

I know what you mean. To put me in one of your category I should tell something about me:
- my background - IT (hardware and software M$ certified);
- my machine's:
1.Taig 2019 4 axis - I have that little mill since 2003. That came with a Xylotex board and now it is running with a controller made it with G203V.
2. Emco compact 5 CNC turn with toolchanger - still need's work to have a decent speed. It has already a G540 unit to control it.
3. MD router - you all know about that.
- parts that I make are jewllery
- software used:
CAD - Rhino V4.0, SolidWorks 2008, ArtCam 2008
CAM - BobCad V21, FeatureCam 2008, PowerMill 9
Software controller full Mach3. I have turboCNC and KellySoft but I choose to use Mach3 because support it is fantastic and people in the Yahoo or MachSupport groups are very active and they know the bussines.
I still learn every day and I think every one which it is in this area do the same thing.

RGDS
Gabi
P.S. I hope I answerd to all your question's and I have the knowledge to put that router in the right track.

[irving2008]

Ok, point taken. I'll agree I post some name's. Belive me I was (still I am) very upset about how THEY try to solve my problems. I already spend a lot of money and I still have to do some modification myself to have that router working.
If it is something which I strongly reccommend to anyone who want to step in CNC area is to read and build his own machine.
I have a CNC router almost ready (90% in design stage - many things to do) but I still having trouble to find a company who want to cut my parts at a resonable price.

RGDS
Gabi

Gabi,

What do you need cut? There are several members who may be able to help out. Start your own thread (if you haven't already) and post drawings/DXFs and you might get lucky.

[neo]

The thread seems to have gone a little off topic but here's part 3 for the holiday season to keep you going...

Part 3 Missing you already.

The parts to join the two sections together arrived about a week later.
unfortunately, those four missing specialised nuts were not the only parts that were not sent in the main box: The bracket to attach the spindle was also absent and so were two extra colletts for the Kress.
just to add to the experience the mach3 software was also missing....killed in action maybe! ((Mach3, speed of sound? jet fighter?..ohhh please yourselves Frankie howerd))
It took a while to dawn on me that all these parts were not included, remember there was no packing list. Fortunately the original invoice had the software and Kress colletts listed but they most definately wasn't in the box of packaging, I know I emptied it onto the lounge floor several times!

After hoovering up the mess, I was back in my wife's good books!

I kept my calm and duly emailed a list of the missing parts and they added them to the package containing the specialised nuts.
I can't tell you if there's any more missing parts....'cos there's NO CHECK list! (you can add any expletives between the words NO and CHECK at your discretion!......I did!!

So after a short while, all the parts arrived and we set about joining the two main parts together. It didn't take long and all of a sudden it started to look like a CNC machine.

The most noticeable thing is how heavy it was becoming, which on the one hand is great as the weight provides rigidity essential for precision, the downside is it becomes awkward to move about.
This is not a problem of the design, its the consequence of having a large machine: the bigger they are the heavier they become and this will affect DIY and commercial units.
It really is surprising how much they weigh.:surprised:
Subsequently, adding the bed to the machine increased its weight even more, it was becoming increasingly difficult to move, and I started worrying about my back! I began to wonder if I could leave the bed off and add other bits whilst I could still move it.
In the end I did a number of dry runs, keeping the sequence in my mind, only to conclude that adding the bed now was the most sensible step as it didn't have to be turned on its side anymore.


Neo

Part 4 to follow