Shapeoko, the Affordable CNC Mill Kit

Craft & Design Woodworking Workshop
Shapeoko, the Affordable CNC Mill Kit

On April 1, Inventables made Shapeoko kits available for the first time. No fooling! This low-cost CNC mill comes in three versions and each features the MakerSlide system. This inexpensive kit is quite an achievement and drives home the fact that MakerSlide is an empowering building block for makers. For Edward Ford, the inventor of Shapeoko, this is a watershed moment but it’s been a long time in coming.

Edward’s CNC odyssey started in 2004. While in college, he worked part-time at a manufacturer where he spent his days at a punch machine performing a boring, repetitive task hour after hour. Just across the aisle from him was a giant plasma CNC machine that captivated his imagination with its precision, power, and speed. Weeks went by. The boredom was stifling but the allure of the plasma CNC was intoxicating. His conclusion? “I’ve got to have one of those!”

Who among us hasn’t been caught up in watching CNC perform its magic? While many of us wish for such empowering tools, few of us will set out to build one from scratch. Yet within six months of falling in love with CNC, that’s exactly what Edward set out to do.


Learning CNC
With ambition but little knowledge, Edward joined CNCzone where he found himself at the epicenter of those longing to make CNC machines. In this online community, Edward found people to engage with, projects to watch. and resources to learn from. With this site as his online resource, he set out to learn CNC.

On this journey, his first lesson was to get the hardware right. His first CNC project was done with the resources of a student and the result was his first CNC frame, cut and assembled with hand tools in his father’s workshop. While building it was a major achievement, the result was disheartening. Hand-cut hardware assembled imprecisely. Keeping everything square proved a major challenge. If it had been completed and powered with motors then it would have torn itself apart. In despair Edward shelved the project.

His second lesson was to get the electronics right. With new-found access to a laser cutter at work, it became possible to produce precision parts and build a quality frame, which he did. Moving to the next stage, he bought a kit from Xylotek to handle the electronics. It came with stepper motors, controller boards, and a power supply which would bringing his new CNC mill to life. While the electronics would readily perform their function, they had to connect to the hardware which presented new challenges. Establishing good mechanical coupling wasn’t easy. Getting the electronics to drive hardware correctly also didn’t come easy. It took a year of tweaking to get the electronics working well with the hardware. By the end of it, he had climbed major learning curves and was well on his way to conquering CNC.

At this point it was 2007 and Edward was years into the process of mastering CNC building. He had learned about hardware and electronics; it was now time for his third major lesson in getting the software and operations right. He installed EMC2, ran his first test, and experienced the joy of success! He had managed to draw a straight line.

Drawing that line was a major milestone, but obviously only a start. There would be many things still to learn about operating the mill. The concepts of homing, backlash, and learning G-code had to be mastered. He had to familiarize himself with different materials, their speeds and feeds, and much more. As he learned, he realized the many things he’d need to improve on his mill and this increased awareness became a growing burden. So much so that he tabled the project for almost two years.

A Fresh Start: Building on lessons learned
By 2008, the landscape had changed for makers. Affordable laser-cutting made it possible to produce precise hardware on the cheap. Open hardware had made controller systems inexpensive and created a vital development community; open source software had produced a raft of wonderful applications. It was time to leverage all these changes and start fresh.

In Edward’s life, SketchUp had been replaced by Autodesk Inventor, so now full 3D prototyping was both possible and powerful. He designed a completely new CNC mill in software. Before cutting even a single piece of wood, he tested the assembly thoroughly in Inventor. When he was confident of his design, he sent the files to Ponoko to be cut. When he received the cut wood, it fit together precisely and assembled perfectly.

When it came to electronics, Arduino and the shields ecosystem were now available to provide controller systems. G-code interpreters such as Grbl made it easy to control CNCs. Together they make it possible to quickly and cheaply build the rest of the mill and put it to the test. With high hopes he ran a test print of the SparkFun logo and he achieve fantastic results!

Open Source CNC Mill Kit
It was 2009 and Edward had been learning CNC mill-building for five years. Since starting his journey, the world of hardware building had changed radically. Starting from scratch he could now model and built a mill quickly and cheaply. A question gnawed at him: Could he help others fulfill the ambition he’d been pursuing for so long? Could he help others build a cheap CNC mill.

Of all the costs of mill-building, the cost of the rails stood in the way his goal. With cheap enough rails a mill could be built for $300. He looked around and found new sources that might work. He didn’t want to pour his own money into testing these options but decided if he could get the work funded then he’d take the time to do the prototyping.

Enter Kickstarter, the crowdfunding service where he posted his CNC project. If the community would fund his test of three different prototypes then he committed to release the results as open source hardware, providing a build of materials (BoM), and drawing files for free to all. A schedule of awards tied to funding levels was set; top contributors would receive complete CNC mill kits of the selected design. The campaign started on June 28, 2011 and ran for 30 days.

Coincidentally, just as the Shapeoko campaign began on Kickstarter, the MakerSlide campaign ended. Since Edward was looking at rail systems, he was naturally interested and after talking with Bart Dring of MakerSlide, he became a big fan. His mill prototypes started to use MakerSlide, and as its structural properties became better understood, Edward used more and more of it. Below you can see renderings of several prototypes: earlier versions on the left,  later versions on the right. Note the last two use MakerSlide exclusively. The end version is the Shapeoko.

The campaign goal had been to raise $1,500 to fund the prototyping. He easily exceeded that and raised a total of over $11,000 with 14 people paying $500 for the CNC kit. Six extra kits had been assembled so Edward offered them for sale to Kickstarter supporters. All six were gone within 15 seconds of sending the offer email and almost 50 people were left wanting. So Edward did what any good businessman would do, he made more.

He made 20 more and sold out in an hour. So he made 30 more… and sold out in an hour. There was obviously demand but only so much time available in Edward’s life to supply kits. With a second baby having recently arrived in his life, Edward needed help. Referencing MakerSlide’s Bart Dring as a role model and Inventable’s Zach Kaplan as a prospective partner, Edward was soon on the path to getting relief. Shapeoko is now available through Inventables who builds kits, does online sales, and performs fulfillment.

Edward is in the process of getting his life back. Without the burden of selling Shapeoko, he can focus on the many ideas he has for Shapeoko add-ons. He wants to design, build, test, and share them with others. He also longs to spend more time in the CNC community forums to help newly excited members learn about CNC. It’s been many months since he could run regularly, ride his mountain bike, or simply watch TV with his wife. Life with his family will soon become more sane… as sane as life gets with two kids under the age of three.

24 thoughts on “Shapeoko, the Affordable CNC Mill Kit

  1. LawrenceSeattle says:

    I was expecting more CNCs to come out of makerslide parts. I’m in the market for a CNC and was tempted to buy until I saw that this was based on belts, Nema17s and an arduino. Lame. Top of my list is still the Fireball V90. It’s a well proven design and way better parts.

  2. zof says:

    great article, even better idea, I can’t wait for the day every garage will have a 3D printer and a CNC machine to produce what you need when you need it, its steps like this that push it forward.

  3. Burke LaShell says:

    When I got involved with ShapeOko, I had no experience with CNC. It’s an incredible learning tool. Now, I’m creating my own 3d parts and cutting them on my very own CNC. It’s pretty cool that $300 can get you into the CNC game.

  4. Scott216 says:

    I’ve been thinking of getting into desktop CNC. This looks like a good way to start.

  5. raymac says:

    The required 150 preorders on inventables.com is two away from filling in less than a week. I’ve ordered a kit and talked with Edward via email. Seems like a great starter kit and he is very responsive over email. Definitely recommend giving it a try. The shapeoko user base is going to explode in the next few months. A very exciting time to get into the CNC world.

  6. Bob says:

    I don’t quite get the ‘drama’ about this,..probably I’m missing something but these look fairly primitive amateur machines just for amusement(?) There are lots of people who have/are using small mills for CNC using either their own or commercial conversions. In horology circles there are quite a few now like this, which is one of the older sites;

    http://members.optusnet.com.au/swensenr/index.html

    1. Minimalia says:

      The “drama” is the cost and flexibility — unless you happen to know where someone can get a new CNC’ed mill, including electronics & motors for $650? If so, please let us know, because there’s a lot of pent-up interest at the low end of pricing.

      Last time I looked CNC Taig was >$2K, CNCFusion wants $500+ just for a Sieg conversion kit that doesn’t include electronics (or the mill), the V90 is $600 without electronics, motors, or a spindle, and so on.

      Yes, there are many vastly more powerful & capable machines. They also cost a lot more. There’s a reason I don’t own a Haas. It’s the same reason I don’t own an LMS 3501, and is still the same reason I don’t own a Taig 2026ER.

  7. M Lange (@errorad) says:

    Sweet, it’s at 163/150 with just over 2 weeks to go.

    I ordered one of the $200 mechanical kits :)

  8. Drone says:

    $650 bucks just to think about starting, $1000 to do it right. I’ll pass, another 2D. 3D “Maker” machine that’s totally unaffordable.

    1. sea2stars says:

      It’s an entry into CNC for the rest of us. Any one handy can complete the Mechanical Kit on their own for far less than $650, tinker with it as they wish, gain some experience and be part of a growing community.

  9. sxrguyinma says:

    http://www.mydiycnc.com. $450 for a ready-to-go machine, just need end mills. It’s far less than $650.

  10. ShapeOko en vue, nouvelles machines pour le labo ! says:

    […] Pour en savoir plus, un petit historique du projet chez MakeZine : http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/06/shapeoko-the-affordable-cnc-mill-kit/ […]

  11. David S says:

    Another batch is in the making! But 34 more pre-orders required in 3 days.

  12. The times they are a changin | ShapeokoShapeoko says:

    […] some stuff happened. The kickstarter project ended and I had 20 units to deliver. As noted in the article written about Shapeoko on the MAKE blog, there was a tremendous amount of demand past the inital 20 kits, to which I complied.  In order […]

  13. Open structures parts kit lets you make anything from scratch | Tim Batchelder.com says:

    […] Shapeoko, the Affordable CNC Mill Kit (makezine.com) […]

  14. ShapeOko! | Rampant says:

    […] Edward Ford, the Shapeoko’s inventor, happened to be at the space the night I finished the mechanical build of the Shapeoko: […]

  15. Pumping Station: One » Blog Archive » ShapeOko! says:

    […] Edward Ford, the Shapeoko’s inventor, happened to be at the space the night I finished the mechanical build of the Shapeoko: […]

  16. Andreas' Blog » Blog Archive » CNC Mill / CNC Router says:

    […] Introducing the Shapeoko 2 ShapeOko github: ShapeOko ShapeOko Spindle Options Shapeoko, the Affordable CNC Mill Kit Blog: ShapeOko Huge Forum: ShapeOKo and OpenRail Forum: My design – shapeoko – 1m*1m […]

  17. Shapeoko 2 Milling Machine Launches Today | MAKE says:

    […] years after the Kickstarter campaign concluded, creator Edward Ford has joined forces with Inventables to build the Shapeoko 2, which goes on pre-sale today. The […]

  18. Where Are They Now? CNC Mill Edition | MAKE says:

    […] Shapeoko 2 There’s a new Shapeoko in town. The second iteration of the low-cost mill, available on Inventables, is bigger, badder, and can be run with Inventables’ still-in-beta Easel CAM software. […]

  19. X-Carve: Inventables Launches New Line of Workshop CNC Machines | Make: says:

    […] Shapeoko line began with Edward Ford‘s $300 proof of concept CNC machine kit, funded on Kickstarter in 2011 to the tune of […]

  20. A Better, Affordable CNC | Starvin Larry says:

    […] in 2012 I wrote a piece on Shapeoko, Edward Ford, and his CNC community. At the time he was on the verge of bringing the first good […]

  21. Shapeoko Moves Toward a Better, Affordable CNC | Make: says:

    […] in 2012 I wrote a piece on Shapeoko, Edward Ford, and his CNC community. At the time he was on the verge of bringing the first good […]

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Speaker. Maker. Writer. Traveler. Father. Husband.

MakerCon Co-Chair (MakerCon.com) Maker City San Diego Roundtable Member San Diego Maker Faire Producer (SDMakerFaire.org)

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