A few months ago I had an exchange with @ErikJenkins about his addition of an X Axis to his x-carve.
My schtick, if you will, is attempting to carve replicas of works of antiquities,
and I like busts, so I thought adding an A Axis would be very enabling,
so I wrote a budget and started to pursue it.
The plan I ended up with was to:
- buy the rotary axis itself from eBay, there are lots there
- use a copy of Deskproto MultiAxis to write the g-code
- buy a laptop with a copy of Mach 3 to use as a controller
- buy a gecko-based control box to control it all
The last two steps are necessary as the x-carve controller / sw will not accept the G-ocde necessary to drive a rotary axis.
The real key appeared to me to be the control box: Erik had bought his from Dan @ Camtronics. When I went there the site was down, I got no email response, and I guess that Dan has retired and stopped making them?
SO I went looking for an alternate and found a guy on eBay that says he makes them:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gecko-6-Axis-Chassis-3-G251xs-48v-12-5a-3-Nema-23-300oz-in-3-5A-Motors-/131668750590?ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&afsrc=1&rmvSB=true
Seemed like the right thing, so I started an email dialog. That was October 10.
we had a back and forth over specs and all, and at some point I got sent a link to a youtube video that showed a system in more detail:
https://youtu.be/dRq8TmYlY9c
I got a quote for a system that had the right number of ports, and all seemed perfectly on track.
Vince seemed to have a robust business, a good sign: you never eat sushi in an empty restaurant:
so I waited.
i pinged again in early November:
…and in early December:
and in early january:
Finally, in late January, this:
The video referenced was on a google drive and was made just for me:
had a voice over where he used my name, walked though the setup again.
I showed it to my wife, she was uber impressed.
A long wait I thought, but great outcome.
I sent the following message:
That was 2 weeks ago: no response.
I have sent a couple of additional pings: again no response.
I went to link the video to this message:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_20lacqnw-vQjVIRGpTWjZ1bTQ/view?usp=drive_web
as you can see, it has disappeared.
I’m honestly confused by this behaviour.
I don’t understand why someone would string me along for 4 or 5 months,
make a video showing the finished product we agreed I would buy, and then disappear.
I’m posting this here for three reasons:
- Therapy: I need some help processing this. Hopefully one of you will be able to help me understand what is happening here.
- Warning: I think my message here is that this is not right, and I would avoid this vendor. It makes me sad to say that, but there you are
- Help: can anyone suggest an alternative vendor for a system like this? I would like to move forward, and the lack of supplier is holding me back.
Thanks for reading this little drama.
Any comments or help appreciated.