It’s the Internet Revolution meets the Industrial Revolution: a new program that lets people design 3-D objects like car parts and door knobs in metal or plastic, then order them online.
Programs for computer-aided design, or CAD, have been around for decades, but eMachineShop.com appears to be the first service that checks whether a design can be made and tells the customer how much it will cost. If the customer wants the item, the design goes to a “real world” machine shop for manufacturing.
The key to this enterprise is free design software provided by eMachineShop that’s simple enough for nonengineers.
Prices won’t be competitive with Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart won’t make 10 copper door knobs, then sandblast them for you. EmachineShop charges $143 for that.
The company was created by Jim Lewis, a programmer and self-professed tinkerer. Lewis’ software company, Micrologic, designed eMachineShop and contracts with machine shops all over the world to do the manufacturing.
Even though the Midland Park, N.J., company, which has 19 employees, doesn’t advertise, it has handled more than 1,000 orders for door signs, motorcycle seats, robot frames, car engine covers, guitar plates, camera parts and other things.
The most expensive item it has sold since it began beta testing in 2003 is a $4,011 aluminum, 26-inch diameter part for a high-powered laboratory magnet.
The customers range from large companies that make prototypes to hobbyists such as Dennis Vegh of Mesa, Ariz., who had the company make metal parts for an airplane he is building after a 1929 design.
“I had to have the pieces made, because they do not exist anywhere,” Vegh said.
He found the software easy to use. The quality of the finishing has varied a bit between orders, but has been acceptable, he said.
“Being able to sit at your home computer, draw up some parts, submit them, and 30 days later they are on your doorstep, all without human contact, is mind-blowing,” Vegh says.
Lewis, the company founder, estimates that with conventional methods, it takes about 40 hours to design a part, get a quote, straighten out manufacturing problems with the machine shop and submit the order.
Taylan Altan, a professor at Ohio State University’s College of Engineering, agrees, saying the process can easily drag out to two weeks.
“One of the biggest problems we have today in American design and manufacturing is that designers know very little about manufacturing,” he says.
As a result, designers draw parts that are hard to make and require several rounds of modification before they can be put into production, a problem eMachineShop aims to avoid by building the knowledge of a machinist into the design software.
For instance, if you’re designing a part made of sheet metal, it won’t allow you to include a bend too close to an edge, since the machinist needs enough surface to hold onto when bending.
Associated Press
Jim Lewis, president of eMachineShop.com, examines a customer’s part at his office in Midland Park, N.J.
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