Yeti SmartBench

[rjssigns]

Found this on YouTube last night: https://www.yetitool.com/products/product-details/smartbench

I think it's pretty slick. If it holds register for things like push through I'd be interested. I'll let the CNC gurus take over and give their thoughts.

 

[James Burke]

I've lived in the world of industrial CNC for almost 30 years and I believe you'd be better off with a gently used industrial model. Find a company that's been around longer than the millennials who started it. If you plan to use it as a stepping stone learning experience toward a larger machine, then it may prove profitable, but only you can determine that.

I started working for company shortly after they spent tens of thousands of dollars in lost time, customer angst, and scrapped material when they purchased a fairly expensive "tinker toy" plasma cutter.

They turned around 6 months later and purchased a $100k water jet machine and never looked back.


JB

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

i am into it. if i had 5 grand laying around id snag one for fun/for guitar building.

 

[rjssigns]

I've lived in the world of industrial CNC for almost 30 years and I believe you'd be better off with a gently used industrial model. Find a company that's been around longer than the millennials who started it. If you plan to use it as a stepping stone learning experience toward a larger machine, then it may prove profitable buy only you can determine that.

I started working for company shortly after they spent tens of thousands of dollars in lost time, customer angst, and scrapped material when they purchased a "tinker toy" plasma cutter.

They turned around 6 months later and purchased a $100k water jet machine and never looked back.


JB

All valid points. I'm going to sit back and see what shakes out. I'm in no hurry. I do however like the concept of being able to break it down for storage. Personally, I'd like to have a 4' x 4' Gerber. It's about all I could squeeze in the shop.

 

[Superior_Adam]

All valid points. I'm going to sit back and see what shakes out. I'm in no hurry. I do however like the concept of being able to break it down for storage. Personally, I'd like to have a 4' x 4' Gerber. It's about all I could squeeze in the shop.

We have a 4'x4' Gerber we are not using. Not sure if the owner would be interested in selling or not.

 

[signsofsigns]

We have a 4'x4' Gerber we are not using. Not sure if the owner would be interested in selling or not.

I'm interested to purchase. Please advise.

thanks

 

[ikarasu]

Watch the video from 1:00 - It shakes so much... you can see the rough edges due to all the chatter when its cutting some of the pieces. You wont be able to get anything accurate from it. It might be a good little toy to learn with as others said, but thats all.

The best part of the video is when they show how accurate it is, and place the remaining last piece, the black Y into the slot. then forgot to edit the video so people couldn't tell every other letter was just a cut through, with a 4x8 black board underneath so it looks like every piece was part of the puzzle... it magically fills into black as they pan the video overtop to be straight!

If you're looking for something small... I'd look into the shaper origin, https://www.shapertools.com which is doing pretty good and decently accurate... it's slow and more of a manual process though.

Theres also the maslow... which is upright so it takes up little space. It comes in cheap at $500, but again.. you'll be spending hours tinkering with it, and it does have some flaws such as every piece needs a tab that you have to break apart and sand down later. It's also more of a toy... but depending on what you want to do, its doable.. just not as easy as a real CNC. http://maslowcommunitygarden.org/?market=true

There are cheaper small business-made machines out like the above - But I consider it to be the same as buying a chinese printer. Sure it will likely work.. but you're going to be doing hours and hours of playing with it to get good results... If you;re doing small projects that arent time sensitive, or just want to dip your toe into the world of CNC before buying a 100,000 multicam, theyre great toys.

As long as you go into it realizing that, it doesnt hurt to buy one.

 

[bannertime]

Watch the video from 1:00 - It shakes so much... you can see the rough edges due to all the chatter when its cutting some of the pieces. You wont be able to get anything accurate from it. It might be a good little toy to learn with as others said, but thats all.

The best part of the video is when they show how accurate it is, and place the remaining last piece, the black Y into the slot. then forgot to edit the video so people couldn't tell every other letter was just a cut through, with a 4x8 black board underneath so it looks like every piece was part of the puzzle... it magically fills into black as they pan the video overtop to be straight!

I also find it hard to believe they get that kind of accuracy right out of the machine, but I don't think it's as sinister as you make it to be. I went back and watched it a few more times and it looks pretty clear to be acrylic laid into wood in every shot. I'm not sure if I'm misreading your post, but I don't think it looks at all like they just had a sheet of black acrylic under the cutouts.

 

[rjssigns]

Will have to wait until more are in the field and people start hammering them. Just like racing. Build your ride then take it to the track and find all the flaws.

 

[Gene@mpls]

Shopbot has the Handibot which is somewhat similar and they now have a subscription service where you can get a machine for a few months and return it. Also a fantastic forum with very helpful people.

 

[ikarasu]

I also find it hard to believe they get that kind of accuracy right out of the machine, but I don't think it's as sinister as you make it to be. I went back and watched it a few more times and it looks pretty clear to be acrylic laid into wood in every shot. I'm not sure if I'm misreading your post, but I don't think it looks at all like they just had a sheet of black acrylic under the cutouts.

Look at the way he has it setup for the Y - It's not a full cutout, it's just a half/3quarter engraving with pin holes.

Then watch the video again from 1 - as the camera pans around, you see the rest of the letters are hollow... and somehow get filmed in black. I thought it was because he had everything cutout and just had a black sheet/4x8 under it... but now it looks more like video editing / photoshop.

If you look at the metal bar under the yetis beard... It goes from straight to distorted immedietly.

then 1:14 - 1:20 you see the camera panning... theres nothing behind the I and L.. then as soon as he gets over it, it looks like he placed a letter in.

Ignoring the distorted media holder.... Maybe he did something weird with the camera angle, but I don't see why Y would be a percision cut with pin holes, then L and I would be a complete cutout that somehow turns into a black letter as he pans over it.

Maybe I'm missing something, or seeing it differently... It just seems fishy to me! Cutting something like this should be easy on any CNC, I dont get why the Y would be pinhole mounted, and the rest is a pure cutout though.

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

If you need any sort of percision I would say no. Would love to see it cut 3" circles all the way through that plywood. What do the pieces on the side do just fall to the ground?

 

[Liz]

Look at the way he has it setup for the Y - It's not a full cutout, it's just a half/3quarter engraving with pin holes.

Then watch the video again from 1 - as the camera pans around, you see the rest of the letters are hollow... and somehow get filmed in black. I thought it was because he had everything cutout and just had a black sheet/4x8 under it... but now it looks more like video editing / photoshop.

If you look at the metal bar under the yetis beard... It goes from straight to distorted immedietly.

View attachment 143713

then 1:14 - 1:20 you see the camera panning... theres nothing behind the I and L.. then as soon as he gets over it, it looks like he placed a letter in.

Ignoring the distorted media holder.... Maybe he did something weird with the camera angle, but I don't see why Y would be a percision cut with pin holes, then L and I would be a complete cutout that somehow turns into a black letter as he pans over it.

Maybe I'm missing something, or seeing it differently... It just seems fishy to me! Cutting something like this should be easy on any CNC, I dont get why the Y would be pinhole mounted, and the rest is a pure cutout though.

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me offering some more information based on your comments. I thought you might like to know that no trickery was used for the 'puzzle piece' shot, the final piece is hanging on the wall of our workshop as you can see below. The editing cuts in the video were just to accompany the music, but I can see how perhaps that wasn't clear enough. (I was the video editor, so that’s my bad.) We used 18mm plywood and 3mm acrylic.

The shaking in the shots you mentioned was caused by this set up.

Not the most stable as you can see but we were trying to get creative with it. This is why you don’t see that same shaking in any of the other shots as the camera was not attached to the z-head. You’ll be happy to know we’ve since upgraded to a go-pro which achieves the same shots with much more stability! We will show that in any and all future videos.



That’s a fair observation about the chatter, we definitely didn’t use the correct feeds & speeds for that cut, and we all know how important that is when it comes to accuracy.



I don't mean to discredit your comment at all, your doubts are truly understandable as we are a fairly young company. Nor am I here to advertise, but as the video editor I didn't want my editing to misinform anyone! I hope that as we continue to put more content and information out there we are able to ease your concerns. And thank you for trying to keep people informed! With so many options these days buying your own CNC machine can be such a difficult decision.

 

[ikarasu]

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me offering some more information based on your comments. I thought you might like to know that no trickery was used for the 'puzzle piece' shot, the final piece is hanging on the wall of our workshop as you can see below. The editing cuts in the video were just to accompany the music, but I can see how perhaps that wasn't clear enough. (I was the video editor, so that’s my bad.) We used 18mm plywood and 3mm acrylic.

The shaking in the shots you mentioned was caused by this set up.

Not the most stable as you can see but we were trying to get creative with it. This is why you don’t see that same shaking in any of the other shots as the camera was not attached to the z-head. You’ll be happy to know we’ve since upgraded to a go-pro which achieves the same shots with much more stability! We will show that in any and all future videos.



That’s a fair observation about the chatter, we definitely didn’t use the correct feeds & speeds for that cut, and we all know how important that is when it comes to accuracy.



I don't mean to discredit your comment at all, your doubts are truly understandable as we are a fairly young company. Nor am I here to advertise, but as the video editor I didn't want my editing to misinform anyone! I hope that as we continue to put more content and information out there we are able to ease your concerns. And thank you for trying to keep people informed! With so many options these days buying your own CNC machine can be such a difficult decision.

Thanks for the clarification! I can see a phone being strapped to the spindle being the cause of most of the stuff I pointed out... Cell phone cameras hate being shaked.

It's good to see more competition for this kind of stuff. Ill keep an eye out for future videos, it'll be interested to see how this does in the future. We have a multicam at work, but at this footprint I wouldn't mind one in my garage.

As boring as it may sound, you guys should record a 1:1 speed video from loading the material to the last cut so people can see the speeds

 

[rjssigns]

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me offering some more information based on your comments. I thought you might like to know that no trickery was used for the 'puzzle piece' shot, the final piece is hanging on the wall of our workshop as you can see below. The editing cuts in the video were just to accompany the music, but I can see how perhaps that wasn't clear enough. (I was the video editor, so that’s my bad.) We used 18mm plywood and 3mm acrylic.

The shaking in the shots you mentioned was caused by this set up.

Not the most stable as you can see but we were trying to get creative with it. This is why you don’t see that same shaking in any of the other shots as the camera was not attached to the z-head. You’ll be happy to know we’ve since upgraded to a go-pro which achieves the same shots with much more stability! We will show that in any and all future videos.



That’s a fair observation about the chatter, we definitely didn’t use the correct feeds & speeds for that cut, and we all know how important that is when it comes to accuracy.



I don't mean to discredit your comment at all, your doubts are truly understandable as we are a fairly young company. Nor am I here to advertise, but as the video editor I didn't want my editing to misinform anyone! I hope that as we continue to put more content and information out there we are able to ease your concerns. And thank you for trying to keep people informed! With so many options these days buying your own CNC machine can be such a difficult decision.

Great reply. Now I'm more interested than when I stumbled on your video. Your CNC is so simple the first time you see it you're left wondering why nobody did it before. Kudos to your team.
Be nice to see an in person demo.

 

[Liz]

Thanks for the clarification! I can see a phone being strapped to the spindle being the cause of most of the stuff I pointed out... Cell phone cameras hate being shaked.

It's good to see more competition for this kind of stuff. Ill keep an eye out for future videos, it'll be interested to see how this does in the future. We have a multicam at work, but at this footprint I wouldn't mind one in my garage.

As boring as it may sound, you guys should record a 1:1 speed video from loading the material to the last cut so people can see the speeds

Thank you for the suggestion! I think that would be a great idea for something like IGTV or FB live, I'll look into it.

 

[Liz]

Great reply. Now I'm more interested than when I stumbled on your video. Your CNC is so simple the first time you see it you're left wondering why nobody did it before. Kudos to your team.
Be nice to see an in person demo.

Thank you very much! In fear of breaking advertising rules I'll scuttle back to looking at the design forums, but if you are interested in finding out where you can see live demos then do reach out to us on either our website or social media.

 

[Signscorp]

All valid points. I'm going to sit back and see what shakes out. I'm in no hurry. I do however like the concept of being able to break it down for storage. Personally, I'd like to have a 4' x 4' Gerber. It's about all I could squeeze in the shop.

did you buy this in the end RJ? We just got one

 

[signdudegraphix]

We got our yeti almost 2 months ago. We’ve mainly used it for cutting 6mm & 3mm ACM. We can wrap the ACM, then contour cut it perfectly. We’ve been very happy with the results. It has almost paid for itself already. Here’s one of our recent projects

 

[rjssigns]

did you buy this in the end RJ? We just got one

Not at this time. We're scouting property for our "forever" home/workshop. It would be great if you could post updates on what type of projects you're doing with yours.