How do you fund your big machinery purchases?

Technical Technical Discussion
#1

I know there are quite a few teams that have done big machinery purchases (stuff like Haas mills, etc.). I’m curious: where do you secure funding for such big expenditures? Are there certain grants for this sort of thing? Did you go out and fundraise? Get sponsorships from the manufacturers? Maybe you even got it donated, but how?

I ask because we are currently building a new school campus, and with that I’ve started to think about what kind of tools we want to partner with our school to get put in our shop. While we’re getting a 4’x8’ ShopBot that the school is purchasing, I’ve started to think a bit bigger than that, stuff like a Haas VMC, a waterjet (while extremely unlikely), etc.

I’m interested to see how your team came to acquire all this awesome stuff!

#2

We found our bandsaw on Craigslist for $40. We keep looking for laser cutters and waterjets in that price range, but so far no luck.

#3

Step 1: Find local company that does machining.
Step 2: Ask if you can get some notice when they’re retiring a machine.
Step 3: Arrange transport and shop power.

We picked up a couple of good manual machines that were on the “chopping block” that way. In our case, a Bridgeport (yes, a genuine one) and a lathe of a brand I can’t remember offhand but recognized, because an alumnus had his eyes open when his company wanted to get rid of them.

Pretty much it’s a case of keeping your eyes open for used-tool sales/giveaways.

Can’t speak for the CNC-type machines, though.

#4

For one, used machines are often in excellent condition and you can usually get a very big discount on those. Machines are a combination of school money, team money, and donations. Machinery exchanges and used sellers sponsor us and have provided discounts beyond their already discounted used items.

#5

Unfortunately, my answer about money is that you probably need to do it the hard way by finding sponsors and budgeting carefully.

The good news is, if you start with reasonable expectations you can find good used equipment. We bought a belt-driven manual mill that was built in 1981 for like $2500 and I indexed the head in place within +/- .0003 (+/- .0001 if anybody on my team reads this post :smiley: )

If I were your mentor out in Cali I’d probably tell you to start by contacting this company http://www.permach.com and see what they have for used equipment and some ball park prices so you can set some targets for fundraising. I’d use that information to setup a priority list and you can share that with potential sponsors and see what they can do to help you out. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to find a few companies that will fork over 3-5k to help buy a machine.

If you want any fundraising advice or anymore detailed advice feel free to DM me --I’m a machine geek.

#6

Just for accuracy, only 1836’s Haas CNC router was purchased used. The team’s large ticket items – Haas router and Lagun knee mill – were purchased using school money and donations, with relatively steep education discounts/sponsorship donations.

#7

FRC11/193 got the CNC plasma cutter and HAAS TM1P mill through a combination of: school support, private sponsors and team budget. We had a HAAS TL1 lathe we were kind of holding onto for the tooling company, but it has since been returned.

With the exception of some of the lathes most of the metal shop was already in the school.

The wood shop was also a fixture of the school but, is by comparison to when I was a student, not in as good a shape.

My long list of tools for my Makerspace are entirely out of my budget. Including now: 2 MaxNC 15 mills with CNC rotary tables, 2 MaxNC T2 lathes and 1 MaxNC 10 mill. Also 2 Up Plus! printers and the 14 other designs I’ve got laying around.

#8

A few years back my team’s school built a STEM center addition onto the school. These sorts of additions are fairly expensive, so it actually wasn’t that big of a deal to sneak a few thousand (ok, maybe a bit more than that) worth of equipment into the project budget and get all new stuff. Prior to that, the team got almost all of its equipment from Craig’s List.

I think you’ll find that teams get equipment in a wide variety of ways - Craig’s List, retired machines from professional shops, in-kind donations, fundraising… all are very valid options, with their own pluses and minuses. Find the best one that works both for your specific area and for what you’re looking for!

#9

Sorry if that was not clear…yes…Michael is as always correct

#10

I wold definitely contact them. We have worked extensively with Performance Machine Tools to purchase a bunch of machines and tooling over the last year and have been very satisfied with their prices and service. Ask for Bob and tell him Bellarmine Robotics referred you. We referred 5924 to them and I believe they purchased a lathe and were looking at some other equipment as well.

For the OP, unless this is a one time only expenditure opportunity I would start small and get a solid base built up of manual machine tools and support equipment (sanders, drill press, band saws, shear, brake, etc). Once you have a group of mentors/students who are competent with that stuff you’ll be better equipped to move up to CNC. If you’re starting from scratch without people that have a deep knowledge of machining/fabrication it’s easy to end up with the wrong stuff or with something that sits for years because you don’t know how to take advantage of it.

#11

Our biggest purchase in team history was our trailer ($9,000 budget, including wrap, solar panels, and other neat stuff). One of our mentors, Isaac, put together a grant proposal (with a bit of team help) to Ingersoll Rand Foundation; he’s an IR employee. We’re listing IR Foundation as a platinum sponsor for three years based on this grant.