Hey Mike,

Interesting idea, but with this approach I'd be concerned that the individual cost would turn out to be very expensive if people have to go out and pay for setup, and CNC machine time for single parts. People who already have access to CNC equipment would benefit, but I don't think most people have this kind of access.

The problem is that there are a lot of parts involved, and most of them are not straight forward to program. Mike and Andy spent a lot time trying to figure out how to make these parts. Wherever possible they tried to minimize changing setups for each part because if you have to unchuck, or unclamp a part in order to turn it around you lose accuracy between the machining you do on one side, and the machining you do on the other side. Also, there are already quite a few fixtures made already because they were necessary in order to be able to make the parts.

The kind of tooling we are talking about that would lower the cost is stuff like making dies that will let us make the ring gear, the planet gears, and the pinion gear out of powder metal instead of having to machine each gear tooth individually.