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[Mr. Scram]

A machine with these exact parts and specifications complete ready built by a commercial company would sell probably for around 12k€ easy (cheap labour).
The assembly work alone including the electronics cabinet is two manweeks, the parts are also 6,5k€ include profit and shipping and you are probably close to the 15k€.

Yes there are ready build machines costing 6k€ , I myself purchased a 4k€ machine ten years ago but those are in comparison a totally different category.
They are not as rigid, they don't have closed loop steppers, no vfd spindle, no professional controls, no hardend german quality iron spindles/ballbearings with precision machining and no high quality linear guides. If you test them on accuracy and repeatability you are in a different league.
In short they are skimping on every part. It might look the same for a layman but it sure is not the same 

So if you want a short overview of where the costs are coming from:

Aluminium profiles:                                           €700
Machined and anodised aluminium parts:          €1000
Hiwin guiderails and blocks for X,Y,Z axis:          €800
Isel axis 2x X ,Y,Z  + ballscrew mounts            €1000
Small mechanical parts t-nuts, bolts                  €100
Closed loop steppers and drivers 4 sets             €750
Motor couplings holders                                     €50
Bearings for the axis                                        €150
Electronic parts, powersupplies etc                    €400
Motor cables energy chains                               €250
Rittal metal enclosure 60x40cm                         €100
CNC software and IP controller board EdingCNC  €400
Iron table stand custom welded                        €250
T bar aluminium plate 800x600mm                   €420
1,5kW Spindle + VFD                                       €300   +
                                                              ----------------
                                                                      6600.-

Now I could have saved €500 by machining the aluminium parts my self, but for the rest I would not know where to get lower prices for the same quality.
Some non critical parts like the stepper motors are already low cost Leadshine drivers. The 1,5kW spindle is also Chinese since a German quality one costs over €2000.- upto €4500.-
So it is actually also for some parts cheap, I will upgrade later on, for the mechanical part that has to be 100% from the start, but for instance the spindle can be upgraded later on.

Closed loop steppers are servos, right?

Do you have a link to any plans or examples? This all sounds fairly interesting.

[Kjelt]

Closed loop steppers are servos, right?

Yes but historically they preserved the name servo for high voltage AC motors if I am not mistaken, but yes they are 3 phase stepper motors with an 1000ppr encoder built in for the feedback loop.

Do you have a link to any plans or examples? This all sounds fairly interesting.

The main site with the files is in dutch  Perhaps google translate can help out a bit.
https://www.cnczone.nl/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13192

Some example of somebody who built it more or less (you are free to deviate from the plans he uses a different iron welded chassis instead of the all aluminium profile basis)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCvKwbiyrME&feature=youtu.be

 

[URI]

I recently bought a defective HP 6114A. Nice repair game awaited.   

Also bought an HP 8484A power sensor 100pW -10µW for 105€ incl. shipping. Auction time was only two days and the subject had misspellings in it -I hope I had luck and was the only one who accidentally stepped over it (I placed the only (minimum) bid).
I already have an 8484A power sensor I got for a good price -but it's the older model that "only" goes down to 300pW.      

I'm curious if it's intact and working properly -if not I'll go for refund because the seller sold it as "used but fully functional" and claimed he's not taking it back.. 

[URI]

Oh, I bought a BILLY bookcase together with two OXBERG panel/glass doors from that Swedish company selling funnily named furniture.   

The lower half will be storage room and the upper half showcase for a part of my safety/railway signalling relay collection (yes, there's another addiction  )
Moving my relay collection gives me room in my desk drawers of my bench that I need urgently -I'm rearranging my bench currently because it was built to weak to house all my Test Equipment and also because I was running out of space.
This solution has my wife's acceptance.       

[julianhigginson]

Better safe than sorry.

I got a new main filter and a bunch of pre filters for my "new" bargain metcal solder fume extractor...

I figured having an extractor with the filter either backwards, or flipped the right way after being run backwards for some unknown amount of time is kind of missing the point of having a device that sucks fumes out of the air.. and while it certainly bumps up the price of my bargain, I know that
1) it's working right for sure
2) the age of the filters in it.

[beanflying]

Finally got sick and tired of screwing terminals in to test mains gear on the bench.

eBay auction: #https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Quicktest-mains-connector-test-block-wall-desk-bench-safe-testing-adaptor-16-amp/262304112381?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

[FrankE]

Rxed today from Thursday's order at RS - braid, a bunch of transistors, crystals, smd passives but my filter media is still in the post. The bad weather spannered the next day delivery. as did misdirection of my filters to NP (I'm in AB)

Ordered parts for my vacuum cleaner K3rStar) but they have to come from Fast/IVAC in NL. £20 delivery FHS!

[Icemncmth]

Picked this up this week. Under 200 US dollars. In perfect shape.

[aargee]

Finally got sick and tired of screwing terminals in to test mains gear on the bench.

eBay auction: #https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Quicktest-mains-connector-test-block-wall-desk-bench-safe-testing-adaptor-16-amp/262304112381?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

We had to dump the set we had at work in the '90s (Read: divert to a worthy cause - me) as they were not compliant with the electrical standards here in Queensland, not sure about the rest of Australia.

These are very useful devices for quick testing, I use mine at least once a week, are you keeping the British 13A fuse in yours? Mines been 'hacked' to take a standard 3AG fuse.

[beanflying]

We had to dump the set we had at work in the '90s (Read: divert to a worthy cause - me) as they were not compliant with the electrical standards here in Queensland, not sure about the rest of Australia.

These are very useful devices for quick testing, I use mine at least once a week, are you keeping the British 13A fuse in yours? Mines been 'hacked' to take a standard 3AG fuse.

Only just ordered. Most likely drop the fuse to either 3 or 5A. Anything more serious is worthy of a covered screw block. Compliance wise I reckon these are fairly idiot proof unless you poke screwdrivers inside it with the lid up 

[Mr. Scram]

Picked this up this week. Under 200 US dollars. In perfect shape.

Judging by the currency, price and automatic gearbox you're in the US, right? They tend to go a bit cheaper there, but it's still a good price. It looks mint. Nice catch!

[BravoV]

Thanks to Inverted18650  , Caddock TF series resistors with TCR of 5 ppm/K.

[Insatman]

Cheap RF power meter board.   $22 including shipping.  Checked it out using the spectrum analyzer and within 0.5dB.   At first I thought it was reading slightly high but then I realized it was also adding up the harmonics from the source.  I added a low-pass filter and now the SA and Power meter agree within 0.5dB.   This model only goes up to 600Mhz but I have another model on order for the higher frequencies.   Not bad for the $$.   I 3D printed the white plastic to give the bare board some protection.   

Specs:  0.1 to 600MHz, -75 to +16dBm.  Provision to add external attenuation to the readout.  A calibration feature I have not yet tried.  Powered by +6-12 VDC. 

[TerraHertz]

I've often wondered how many head-scratchers we would see if a thread along the lines of "Horrid packaging jobs - let's see 'em!" were to be started..

That's a good idea. I've received a few packaging fails too. Some people seem to be just incredibly incompetent, or totally slack. It's very unfortunate when a 'packing challenged scum' sends some rare, delicate, heavy and expensive gear through the post.

A thread of examples could be quite useful. Name names, shame the bastards. After a while the thread could be quite useful for looking up sellers to see if they are mentioned. Also to direct sellers to, if you think they are possibly 'packing naive', so they can see what happens when they don't do it right. Could also post pics of particularly good packing as demonstrations of how to do it right.

frozenfrogz , would you like to start a new thread? Since you are the one currently hurting.

I can add a few. For eg: http://everist.org/NobLog/20160429_first_of_the_last.htm and http://everist.org/NobLog/20130215_The_Q_meter.htm

What would be a good title for a perma-thread? Something expressive, but which isn't insulting to a seller sent to read it.
Packing failures and successes - Lessons learnt  maybe. Suggestions?

[ruairi]

I bought a glass optical Prism from Amazon to teach my 4 and 6 year olds about light and the color spectrum (the topic had come up at the weekend).  They loved it, making rainbows on the porch in the California sunshine.

[Icemncmth]

Picked this up this week. Under 200 US dollars. In perfect shape.

Judging by the currency, price and automatic gearbox you're in the US, right? They tend to go a bit cheaper there, but it's still a good price. It looks mint. Nice catch!

And it's left hand drive!  Although it was made in Turkey.   The Fluke I  picked up for 175. It also has the calibration sticker on it. I had a V III years ago and I don't remember it being as heavy as this one.

[ChrisLX200]

Arrived today - a 6Ltr ultrasonic bath, and a BBrymen 869s.

[Specmaster]

Today I had this nice soldering fume extractor/filter delivered, seems to work a real treat too and I hope that it fulfill a dual purpose, my does artwork design and uses alcohol based pens for his work and these tend to give him a headache so I thought that when I'm not soldering, he might use it to whisk away the alcohol fumes as well.

Time will provide the answer as always.

[McBryce]

And it's left hand drive!  Although it was made in Turkey.

Eh, most of the world is left hand drive, so that doesn't help to indicate where you are, other than the fact that you are in one of the 163 countries that drive on that side (including Turkey).

McBryce.

[NivagSwerdna]

I'm living my life backwards... now arriving in 1982 with a vintage arcade PCB... it's Konami.  6809 processor on the main board and Z80 for sound on the top board.

[Kjelt]

Cool Tutankahmon 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankham

Are you going to bring it back to life?

[NivagSwerdna]

Cool Tutankahmon 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankham

Are you going to bring it back to life?

I hope to raise it from the dead and put it in my Cocktail Arcade cabinet.  (Hopefully the custom Konami chips are still OK)

PS
The MAME emulation for this is not complete so having the real thing is a big deal to me. 

[Inverted18650]

broke my one month vow and bought a pair of Keithley 228 Source Measure Units (one is the 228A) from eBait.

[bitseeker]

Goes by fast, doesn't it?

On the 228/228A, be sure to check the NiCd batteries inside. Mine were leaking.

[djos]

Today I had this nice soldering fume extractor/filter delivered, seems to work a real treat too and I hope that it fulfill a dual purpose, my does artwork design and uses alcohol based pens for his work and these tend to give him a headache so I thought that when I'm not soldering, he might use it to whisk away the alcohol fumes as well.

Time will provide the answer as always.

I've got one of those too, it's not bad for the coin but the range is fairly limited so you need to place it close to your work area so it sucks up the fumes. I assume you got the carbon filters too?