The New, Improved Shapeoko 2 Open-Source CNC Milling Machine Is Available Now from Inventables for Less Than $650
Posted in: Digital Fabrication
Images courtesy of Inventables
Last week saw the opening of Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital, the first major museum show of digitally-fabricated art, architecture and design; Rome hosted the first Maker Faire in Europe a few weeks prior; today sees the launch of the second generation of the Shapeoko.
The first version of the open-source CNC kit was Kickstarted in July 2011 and we took note when it was subsequently picked up by Inventables in the spring of the following year; the ‘Designer’s Hardware Store’ launched the Shapeoko 2 this morning.
Designer Edward Ford worked for four years to design a machine that anyone could build in order to turn their ideas into physical objects with precision. The Shapeoko 1 was used to fabricate machine parts, carve works of art, and start businesses by a worldwide community of users.
Shapeoko 2 is Edward’s response to the enthusiasm and bold experiments of the open-source community. Numerous design changes and improvements have been implemented to improve the user experience, but the cost remains the same. Dead simple. No frills. Supported by a community. Powerful enough for real work.
The community, of course, “is the reason for the Shapeoko 2.” Ford expresses his gratitude and debt to his fellow CNC enthusiasts:
The Shapeoko community has grown from an email list (with four people), to a google group (with 50 people), to a full blown forum (with 1,000+ members!) in under two years… The design of the machine is a collection of community-suggested improvements that were designed, tested, debated, and iterated throughout the course of the last two years. If it weren’t for the community, there wouldn’t be a Shapeoko 2.
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