Mark,

I hear you, we may make certain information "open source" as the power of corroborative working is massive, and no manufacturer can underestimate this. For instance we would never hesitate to sell as kits - you get to play it helps our volumes, you learn, we sell things... it what i believe is a win win... also saving you money on buying the parts individually... who here wants to buy 25,000 resistors at a time? to save 0.1p per resistor?? (an extreme example but true non-the less).

Also as a commercial entity we have access to certain information and technology that you can not get as an individual, such as Embedded licencing and for instance the company I work for is a Microchip design partner, this means that we have access to a lot more information on certain aspects than is available even on there website...

As I said I joined the forum as I want to see it be come the European equivalent of CNCzone (with people that understand metric and imperial), and try to ensure that we have some good things going... One other thing is that we have developed some technologies in line of our other work that could be very interesting for the home CNC market place, Dependant upon the interest, we are very use to Designing, high tolerance systems with run outs well below the Ultra precision specifications, at costs that do not break your bank.... For instance we have a custom designed brush less DC motor, that is capable of up to 30,000 rpm (Generally we run at 20,000 as we can use a higher resolution encoder for precise speed control), and can push 600W continuous, with a 150% overload capability, that is a kin to a RC motor but will not burn out in short order, due to our custom designed heat sinks, as our motor is being used in other project we are working on the Unit price with a drive is dropping rapidly, and the size and weight is very low think total package size of a Nema 23 stepper.

As I say just an example, of things that may have opportunities in the "home brew" CNC world, but that without some commercial purpose would have any financial possibility.... Just an example here....

Anyway... only time will tell, as soon as we are looking for beta testers then we will see if there is interest, and how many read the posts... and as they say the proof will be in the pudding.

James