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Author Topic: Evolution Arms (Formerly ACGCustomSabers) Services and Build Log *Now Open*  (Read 34601 times)

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Offline GusManB

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #75 on: August 23, 2015, 12:42:02 PM »
WOW!

That is Fantastic Alex ;)

Sound like this will help increase productivity and Help you get better RNR :)

Amazing! that 3D printers can do now day.

Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #76 on: October 18, 2015, 01:14:46 PM »
well, I've got my mill all setup for cnc, enclosure done and 95% waterproofed (there are 2 little spots that got missed), 3d printer up and running around the clock, and for the first time, I'm running both the mill and 3d printer simultaneously.  Everything is going good so far.  I'm blown away by what this tiny mill can produce.  I've got a few more tests to perform, and a few pieces to make to get my 4th axis running, but progress should start coming quickly.  The only real question is whether or not my garage can handle the power draw from running the manual lathe and cnc mill at the same time.  I plan to test that when I don't have an 8 hour test part on the mill.

More to come 

Offline Darth Smorgis

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #77 on: November 17, 2015, 06:14:35 PM »
Hey Alex,

I sent you a PM a couple of days ago.  Just posting in case you missed it.
Hope all is well.


Offline SaberNoob

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #78 on: November 27, 2015, 01:10:41 PM »
Hi Alex,

Tried to pm you but your box is full. 

Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #79 on: November 27, 2015, 02:25:20 PM »
Sorry guys, I am here and I am getting your pm's, but school has been quite a challenge the past few months.  I spent most of my free time the first month of the semester getting the cnc mill up and running.  Then the projects, presentations, and tests started to hit. 

I'm in 7 classes right now.  In 2 of them, I actually have to do hands on manufacturing of stuff.  They expect us to just use the resources available at the university (a couple of small 3d printers, a drill press, and a band saw).  However, you guys know me, I have to do things my way.  There's no way with my CNC sitting in the garage that I was going to just use a drill press and a bandsaw to make anything, nor was I going to pay for access to 3d printers that aren't even really big enough to print what I need anyway. 

So, I built up an enclosure for the mill when I first assembled everything, complete with flood coolant.  It's not finalized yet (I still have to tram the column and get a monitor mount for the right side of the enclosure to free up my bench) but it is running.  I did a few sample pieces with it a couple of months ago.  Some of you may have seen my Rumplestiltskin dagger that I made on a big HAAS minimill last year.  Well, for a test, I pulled up the name section in my CAM software, setup the toolpaths, and let the mill do its thing.  I think it was about 6 hours with my slow spindle. 





The quick and dirty (sharpie) blackwash aside, it looks pretty fantastic. 



Worked on another test piece (SHH if you know what that is, don't spoil the surprise) a few weeks later when I found myself with another hour to burn. 





And those were 2 weeks ago when I was beginning to manufacture the 4 bar linkage (shown completed below). 



The first manufacturing project was a 4 bar linkage.  You tear apart a rat trap, put the spring from it into your manufactured linkage, and it has to be able to support a weight of 6 pounds being held at any angle from -45 to 45 degrees on the other side.  The lighter your arms are the better, and when the professor gave me a little bit of lip about it being too heavy if I made the base out of aluminum, I had to prove him wrong and make the entire thing lighter than the wooden base that the other students used. 













I gave it a little bit of pizzazz to ensure we got all of the possible points for the appearance of the linkage (possible 10 bonus points) and we ended up getting more points for it than we were supposed to (15 bonus points).  The professor wanted to keep it as an example for future years.  Other students told him he could keep theirs if he needed it, and his response was "No, I don't want it."  So, I think I knocked that one out of the park. 

Next up is for flight class.  I have to design and manufacture a new wing for a remote controlled plane, and whoevers wing carries the heaviest load with a 10 meter takeoff distance gets a full letter grade boost.  The project is worth 8% of the grade regardless of whether you win.  So, 2 weeks ago, we emailed the person in charge of the wind tunnel so we could test some 3d printed wings.  No response for 2 weeks.  In the meantime, I go by what assumptions I can, and print 4 different wings that are from 8" in span to 9.75" in span (full scale is 60" to 72").  Finally he responds and we I go talk to him.  He tells me the wings are too small, and that I should have measured the wind tunnel.  Okay, sure, I'm gonna go down and take the panels off of the side of the wind tunnel that someone has their senior design project setup in, and stick a tape measure in there.  Or, maybe 2 weeks ago when I asked, you could have told me the wind tunnel was 24" across. 

So anyway, I'm now printing the wings at a much larger scale (18"-22" span) and it's costing me a lot of money worth of material to do it in this size (it's about $30 per wing and 50 hours on the printer times 4 wings).  I can do 12" high prints, so I'm splitting the prints right in the middle and it's a very good fit to the size of this printer. 






Finally, I started building an R2 over the summer.  I didn't mention anything right away because I didn't want to deal with the eyerolls and the "why are you spending time on that instead of my sabers".  Though to be fair, I know you guys are a pretty understanding bunch.  But the reason I held it back for a while was really just because of time.  I wanted to post a huge thread about it when it was done, all of the details of the build, yada yada. 

So why am I telling you this now?  Well, because the reason I picked "right now" to build the R2 is because this is my final year at the university.  This means I needed to have a Senior Design Project to complete, give a presentation and 2 reports on, etc.  So, I pitched it to the instructor for senior design.  After a month of confusion about whether I needed a team or not (I didn't), I finally got it approved.  So yes, I am in fact building an R2-D2 for school.  I've had to submit bi-weekly progress reports since the beginning of september.  And when it's done in april, I'm gonna have to log it to the school to give a presentation/demonstration. 

I have all of the parts besides the feet and center ankle (don't really want to talk about why I don't have those yet) and the whole point of it being a senior design project is the retractable center leg.  That's the system they want me to focus on for the project. 







The 3d model is not as far as the parts I have, besides the center foot and center ankle, but I also don't have all of the current parts fully assembled.  I have quite a few internal and structural bits that I have to mill, but I've been so busy with my other schoolwork that I've not had much time to work on my favorite bit of schoolwork. 

All of that, and I've covered 3 of 7 classes.  Right now I'm typing a presentation that I have to give on monday about the effects of temperature on the properties of aluminum vs steel, working on proving the stability of the wings I've designed for class, printing the wings so we can read our actual values for lift and drag from the wind tunnel to get our final payload numbers, and applying for graduation in the spring.  I scheduled for next semester, and I've got 4 classes, 1 of which is senior design. 

I haven't forgotten about anyone, and I promise, I'll get to everyone.  But, the unfortunate thing about being a student is when the professors decide that I'm going to have 60 hours of homework per week, I have to prioritize that.  With the CNC, I "can" do homework and do some milling at the same time, but at the moment, each toolchange takes about 5 minutes.  I can get that down to about 10 seconds, but I need to spend about $2000 on toolholders to make that happen.  It also isn't as simple as 3d modeling something and hitting go.  You have to actually generate the toolpaths yourself.  Each different type of operation with each different tool takes a few minutes to setup, and sometimes the software just doesn't want to do something correctly, so you have to fight with it for a few hours.  Once you've spent a few hours setting up toolpaths (and it can be less time for simpler parts like the 4 bar linkage arms) you have to put the part in the machine, locate it, make sure everything fits the travels of the machine, put your tool in the spindle, measure the z height, adjust your coolant hose, and start the cycle.  If I had the time to generate the toolpaths, I'd tough it out and do my homework in the garage while the machine ran (it's pretty uncomfortable to sit out there hunched over a book) but I just am not finding the time to be able to do that.  Most of the things for the sabers on the bench are short operations too, so I'd have to man the machine changing tools and parts the whole time.  Not to mention the fact that I actually have to make most of the parts on the manual lathe before putting them in the mill. 

All in all, we're about 80% of the way to where we want to be.  I have the cnc setup, I've learned how to use it without trashing any saber parts (since I didn't just jump right into that), and it's here at my disposal whenever I'm ready to make something.  I don't need any special permission to use it, don't have to go to some obscure place, it's right outside in the shop.  I invested a lot of my own money to be able to have such capabilities (you don't even want to know what that polycarbonate for the enclosure cost), and I did it all for building sabers.  Being able to use it for anything else was a bonus. 

As it sits, we're 3 weeks from the end of the semester (december 18th is the last possible final exam day).  In that time, I've got to build this plane, write a 25 page paper on a catapult lab we did, give a 20 minute presentation (mentioned eariler), design a jet turbine, design and 3d print a tablecloth clip that can withstand a given amount of force, write a 30 page paper on desalination of water, do 8 hours of community service (same class as the 30 page paper), plus submit weekly 10 hour assignments in 3 other classes, and survive the weekly quizzes in 4 of my 7 classes. 

I'm not telling you all this so you can go "oh, poor Alex, yeah, take your time, I understand" so much as that you understand I'm not just spending my time on other projects for myself or anyone else.  I'd much rather be building sabers, especially this batch that's on the bench with my new CNC capabilities.  The only thing I've worked on for myself is a full scale bb-8, and the only reason I've been able to do that is because with the 3d printer, you spend 15 minutes setting it up, start the print, and then the printer just goes for 60 hours.  Rinse and repeat.  It's much less setup to print something than to mill it, and it takes a significantly longer amount of time without having to think about it.  Right now all I have is a pile of BB-8 dome parts and 2 polycarbonate hemispheres sitting in the corner of my room collecting dust.  It's just been something to keep the printer running while I'm doing my schoolwork.  But even for the last month and a half, I haven't printed a single new part for that project.  I had some downtime and didn't have time to fix the problem, and then I had to start printing these wings. 

Went ahead and cleared out my PM box.  I know I owe some people some pm's, but I'm probably not going to get to that today. 
« Last Edit: November 27, 2015, 03:30:36 PM by ANAKIN SKYWALKER »


Offline ishtob

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #80 on: December 27, 2015, 11:44:42 AM »
I sent a pm for some custom work, but not sure it gone through. let me know if you don't see a pm from me

Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #81 on: January 15, 2016, 01:47:06 AM »


took delivery of some toolholders for my mill yesterday.  in practice, it ends up taking me 5-10 minutes to change tools with standard r-8 collets.  But, with these er-20 collets and collet holders, it's down to 5-10 seconds without having to switch toolpaths. 

In case anyone's curious, that's about $2200 worth of toolholders, collets, a "3d sensor", and a height gauge.  I can have up to 20 tools setup at a time, plus the "3d sensor".   CNC was quite an investment, but I have to say it's totally worth it. 


Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #82 on: February 03, 2016, 01:50:34 PM »
Hey everyone.  I've got a few things to mention today. 

First off, my mill is down at the moment.  I use a usb to parallel port converter to send the G-code from the mill controller to the mill, and that has been giving me problems.  Finally a week or so ago, it quit altogether.  I ordered an ethernet to parallel port converter (much nicer, faster, and more expensive).  Installed that and it worked great except for backlash compensation.  So now, each time my mill changes directions, the tool is out of position by about .002" give or take.  This seems to be a known issue with the product, and I'm working with the manufacturer of the ethernet to // port converter to try to get this resolved quickly. 

Next thing is that ACGCustomSabers now offers Crystal Shard installs.  I don't have any pricing worked out on that yet, but it's now an official option. 

Since I've been unable to use the mill for the past week, I had a chance to take care of something that's been on the backburner for a while.  I'm sending off the drawings to a machine shop today to have my first batch of production sabers manufactured.  I'm still working on the details for those, but I hope to be offering them in the $550 range.  They're setup for a 1" blade, tri cree, crystal shard, and the overall dimensions are 10.75" x 1.375".  There's a nice choke point in the bladeholder, and it should make for a very nice dueling saber.  When I have more information, I'll post it here, but for now, here's a couple of renders. 





Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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https://www.facebook.com/Evolution-Arms-1247595518591000/

Hey everyone, Alex Gordon here. As Revenge of the Sixth comes to a close, I wanted to take a minute to unveil the banner under which I'm going to be producing custom sabers (and my partnership with Vader's Vault will continue, rest assured). There isn't much here yet, because I just don't have enough time in this last week of my college career, but I still wanted to go ahead and make this announcement. I've spent a lot of time working on this, and the website is still under construction. All of my existing customers will be relieved to hear that I am going full time in this endeavor once I'm done with college in a week, and all of my future customers will be delighted to know that I will have a batch of Crystal Focus tier HERO sabers available in the coming weeks. This page will serve as the place that I make all of my major announcements, and give all of my major updates, but the main reason I am sharing this now, with so little content is to unveil the name. I've kept this under my hat for a few months now, and I'm very proud to present Evolution Arms to the world.


Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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So, I was doing some light reading yesterday.   :angel:

Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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So, since I guess I haven't totally announced it here, I am moving to a new shop over the next couple of weeks.  Right now I'm working on a concrete pad that's 13'x6' in my garage.  I'll be moving to a 24'x60' work area that has plenty of room for expansion if I find that I need more room. 

I graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in May, and pretty quickly after that, I lost almost a month to a family emergency.  Now that we're getting past that, it's finally time to get moving on sabers full time. 

Today was the second time I've been to the shop, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that my new 13"x40" lathe with DRO, vertical bandsaw, and 7"x12" horizontal bandsaw with hydraulic feed and coolant, my shop desk and chair, and 3 of my 6 workbenches had arrived.

As some of you may have gathered from the previous post, I have 2 Haas CNC machines on order.  An ST-20SS and a DT-2 with HRC-210 4th axis.  They are very nice, very expensive, and should be able to make short work of production runs.  They are due in the week of the 18th.  Once they are completed (the lathe on 7/7 and the mill on 7/13), they will be put on a truck and brought to a local rigging company.  From there, the rigging company will call to setup delivery, and they'll bring the machines into the building for me.  Once the machines are in the building, I have to call the electrician to come back, so the machines can be wired for power.  Once they have power and air, I can then call the Haas Factory Outlet (which is 6 minutes from the shop) to schedule the actual installation of the machines, where they go through the first powerup cycle, level the machine, and calibrate everything to perfection.  The obvious goal is to minimize the amount of time it takes between when the machines arrive and when I can start using them. 

The electrician came out today, and gave his recommendation on powering the machines.  I was only there for about 4 hours, and while the electrician was checking everything out, I assembled my desk, chair, and 2 of the workbenches. 

I've pretty much been spending all of my time on the purchasing of equipment (and the absurd amounts of research that come with it), tooling, workbenches, building a computer, and the overall layout of the shop.  Since I'm wanting to do this in the least amount of time possible, I had to draw blueprints of the floor layout of the shop, so the electrician knows where to wire the power up for each machine.  I could easily sit on my butt right now, and wait for the machines to arrive, then call the electrician to come out and wire it.  But that could add any number of days to the time before when I can use the machines, so instead I'm doing 3x as much work to ensure everything is lined up ahead of time. 

I've had more than a few meetings about the machines, meetings with tooling reps, dozens of hours spent checking machine specifications, etc.  I've basically been working 16 hour days for the last 2 weeks.  I expect that will continue throughout the next 3 weeks until the machines arrive and are ready to cut.   

I'll be heading back in tomorrow bright and early to get the rest of the stuff assembled, and start uncrating/degreasing the machines that have already arrived. 

There is still 1 major thing I have to deal with at the shop, and that's internet.  I'm currently relying on my phone for internet while I'm at the shop.  That's a pretty unreliable, and very expensive way to stay connected, so I may be in and out of touch until I get service hooked up to the building.  Hopefully it's a simple hookup. 


Offline ANAKIN SKYWALKER

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HERO AVAILABILITY ANNOUNCEMENT

At this time, I am planning to launch the Evolution Arms Crystal Focus 8 Tier Heros on August 5th at 12pm EST. 

I'm unsure if it will be on etsy or on my site.  That is TBD. 

There will also be a small quantity available on FX-Sabers, which will be listed in the Trade Federation as a Pre Order. 

Pricing starts at $1049. 

RGB w/ Color Xtender: $165 (basically, CeX cost plus RGB wiring, even though CeX wiring is much more complex than standard RGB)

Emitter Extension Delete: $30

Emitter Extension Delete W/ Blade Plug: $55

Emitter Extension Delete W/ Photon Plug: $60

Control Box LEDs: $30

Tip Type: Regular/Bullet

Sabers will come with chargers and 34" Vader's Vault Dual Diffused Blades (made by VV and shipped to me in bulk).

Sabers will be built to order. 

Led color and FoC color choices will be available, the same LED tech found in the Vader's Vault Hero will be used.  For those wanting to use Photon Blades, Photo plugs will be available. 

There will be no changes to orders on this batch.  How you order it is how you will get it, so plan accordingly.








Updates on other builds are forthcoming.  The machines are still not here yet unfortunately. 
« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 12:10:11 PM by ANAKIN SKYWALKER »


Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Awesome Alex!  :cool:
Really like to swing that Baby!


Offline SaberNoob

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Hoping to hear from you about the status of my build/design.

Offline RyDiddy

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Re: ACGCustomSabers Services and Build Log *Now Open*
« Reply #89 on: January 14, 2017, 06:45:45 PM »
Hey Alex, are you still planning on doing a run of reveal chambers and polishing for the skinnyflex sabers? Would love to have a crystal reveal and crystal focus install on mine, I just received it today :)

Updated.  Will be finished with the e-11 on tuesday or wednesday, then moving on down the list. 

I'll be offering installs for the skinnyflex run at varying trim levels.  Since I'm already doing 2, I figured I don't mind offering up a few installs.  I obviously don't have any pricing info (as I don't have the sabers in hand), but I'd be happy to take on anything from a PC install through a crystal reveal CF install.  Polishing will likely add $50-$75 to each saber given that there are quite a few parts that will need done. 

Also, since I'm in on the Legacy (killer penny) run, and I'll be installing at least 2 of those, I don't mind taking on an install or two for those either.  I do have something "special" in mind, but I'm not entirely sure how crazy I'm going to be able to go until I know how the hilts disassemble for possible reveal sections. 

If anyone is thinking that far ahead and wants to line up an install, feel free to contact me or post here.  When those runs finish, I'll be "dropping everything" to do the installs, so it should be a short lead time.   

 

retrousse