Engineering news
A UK-based start-up developing a CNC machine for use in offices and studios, which it claims produces better prototypes and parts than 3D printers, is seeking investors online.
Muncaster Technologies has turned to the Crowdcube website to raise the £400,000 it needs to take its first machine, the Muncaster S3, to market by the end of this year. The fundraising round had attracted £43,000 at the time of writing and is expected to remain open until the middle of July.
Muncaster, which is backed by CAD software firm Autodesk, initially plans to lease the compact CNC machines to product developers for £1,500 a month, although they will also be available to buy.
Lloyd Pennington, founder and chief executive of Muncaster, said: “We’ve finished prototyping and these funds will be used for tooling to make the machines, marketing and recruitment so we can strengthen the engineering team.”
Pennington said the impetus to develop the S3 came from dissatisfaction with the quality of 3D printed parts which he said were usually “wildly out of tolerance” with “awful material properties”. When he found there was no machine able to produce parts as quickly, accurately and from a wide enough variety of materials, he decided to build his own.
The S3 is able to produce parts up to 500mm x 400mm x 230mm in a variety of materials, including ABS, polycarbonate, acrylic, brass, aluminium, steel, ceramic, wood, composites, modelling board and foam. The machine has a footprint of 1m2 and has a stiff, sound-proofed composite structure to give it the mechanical properties it requires to enclose the machining process. Components such as the gantry, spindle housing and table trunnion are made from carbon fibre, and the machine has compressed air and swarf handling built-in. The spindle runs at up to 50,000rpm, enabling higher feed rates of up to 30m per minute, reduced power consumption and improved surface finishes.
The machine is designed to be as compact, quiet and reliable as possible, said Pennington, while being accurate and easy to use. It includes Internet of Things features that enable it to improve as it is used. He said: “Instead of taking a craft approach to machining, we are taking a scientific approach. The machine reduces the mediocre processes that manufacturing engineers and machinists have to do, allowing them to spend time on better tasks. It can deal with the materials and tooling differences and the cuts, feed rates and spindle speeds.”
The fundraising page can be accessed here.