# Have you seen the Handibot yet?



## curiousgeorge (Nov 6, 2006)

Check THIS out. Looks interesting.


----------



## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

Yes, looks interesting. And looks way too expensive for me. I doubt I would come up with a use for one anyway.


----------



## Multiwood (Feb 24, 2013)

Very cool music. Wonder what the name of the song is. Oh yea cool tool too.


----------



## neville9999 (Jul 22, 2010)

Neat idea, I find their web site very very annoying. NGM


----------



## bdusten (Mar 22, 2013)

Pretty wild, but I'm sure the price tag is too.


----------



## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

If they don't display a price, I know I probably can't afford it. I too found the site annoying. It really looks like they're fishing for funding.


----------



## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

The pricing is a little confusing but it is there if you go to the next page by clicking on "join our kickstarter". You can pre-buy for $2400 to $5000.


----------



## david_de (Jun 3, 2013)

I like the open source idea. Open source can have many ideas, contributes, and testers.

I notice also that if you have one you can make one. 

"It is even possible to produce the parts for a Handibot using a Handibot – yes, they are self-morphing and self-upgradable, but for efficient production of multiple tools we will use larger CNCs. "

Have to wait and see how this plays out I guess. See if it turns out to be fact or fiction.


----------



## Roloff (Jan 30, 2009)

It looks as if this company wants to make a home sized CNC unit - adding portability to make it different from the rest of the crowd already forming in this market niche. I can see it becoming really mass market at some point down the road. Figure a year or two, it might have enough project software to be viable. But by then, I'd expect a half dozen more entries in the niche. For now, frankly, the apps seemed trivial. But the start of all computer gear has seemed a bit trivial. After all, when personal computing first became a mass market phenomenon, hardly any changes had popped up in the field of accounting since Fra Pacioli devised double entry in the 16th century! 

Judging from the prices mentioned in the Kickstarter page, this unit will cost as much as most consumer market CNC units do now. It will be a heavy slog, same as home/small shop units experience currently. 

It would make a rewarding home design project, designing similar tools. The idea of portability is always popular. 3D printing and home CNC are both very hot ideas now.


----------



## fixtureman (Jul 5, 2012)

You can take it to a job site and do engraving on a wall


----------



## curiousgeorge (Nov 6, 2006)

fixtureman said:


> You can take it to a job site and do engraving on a wall


... or a ceiling or a floor or just about anything the machine will set on. Also it will carve/etch metals too. There was an article in Fine Woodworking mag about these and they stated that eventually the plans to build these will be offered to the public for free or you can buy one already built from them. The plan is to make their money off the software apps instead of the machine. Kinda like the cheap printers and expensive ink marketing strategy.


----------



## neville9999 (Jul 22, 2010)

Cherryville Chuck said:


> The pricing is a little confusing but it is there if you go to the next page by clicking on "join our kickstarter". You can pre-buy for $2400 to $5000.


My advice to anyone who saved a link to that site is to delete it and think about them no more. NGM


----------



## geoff_s (Apr 14, 2012)

They state that they will be releasing the design into an open repository.
In the meantime, you can get a reasonable CAD file of it here.


----------



## geotek (Mar 4, 2012)

It seems strange that a multi-million dollar company like ShopBot would use Kickstarter as a way to fund a new product. If I were planning to invest $25,000 in a big CNC router from Shop Bot, then saw this kickstarter thing, I would get nervous.


----------



## bgriggs (Nov 26, 2008)

geotek said:


> It seems strange that a multi-million dollar company like ShopBot would use Kickstarter as a way to fund a new product. If I were planning to invest $25,000 in a big CNC router from Shop Bot, then saw this kickstarter thing, I would get nervous.


Personally, 

I think this is a great way for an existing company to fund a project. If they have stock holders, stockholders tend to get nervous when you use the company's funds on an experiment. 

Using crowd funding takes away all the risk financially. People voted with their dollars and said that they want this product. They raised $350,000 for this project. 

I wrote that I believe that this might be a similar explosion in CNC routers as the Makerbot was for 3D printing. Check it out if you want to know my reasons.

Handibot: Could it be a CNC game changer? «


Bill


----------

