Okay, I did go to your site and look around. Given the ready availability of components and information on DIY CNC I was actually a little shocked at the high prices. Below is a photo of a 4- axis machine I built a couple of years ago for a HOF cuemaker. As I recall he had less than $5k in it when I was done, and he could have built it himself for more like $3k:
TW
.
TW,
The difference between "Do It Yourself" and the price point differential of a business model that performs custom design engineering bringing a product to market is the following expenses. Anyone who and managed a successful business understand that there are also more line item expenses that I have omitted.
Overhead costs for:
R&D and Engineering
Start up costs
Facilities cost (rent of real estate investment for plant and offices)
Taxes and Insurance
Utilities expenses
Investment in plant equipment
Staff Payroll and associated benefits, taxes and accounting fees
Federal and State taxes on profits to the business
Legal Expenses
Related costs for customer service and downstream product support interaction
Marketing and travel expenses related to trade shows ect.
The list goes on and on and anyone who has run and successful business understands this. Paying out all of the things I mentioned and producing a profitable EBITDA from product sales or service requires a high degree of management and talent. About as far as you can get from "Do it Yourself". LOL.
Unique Products IMHO opinion does all of these things with a great deal of panache. Their products are engineered and manufactured to a very high standard and stand up in the field as they are bullet proof IMO.
How do I know this? I have used many of their product first hand, have received unbelievable customer support after the sale and witnessed solid performance of their products I have owned requiring very little downstream maintenance attention. I have friends who have purchased their equipment used and they get the same customer service support for free BTW.
Example: I purchased one if their Cue Companion repair lathes new for my Billiards Cafe. In the 10 years of operating that lathe the only maintenance I performed to it was changing 3 drive belts at a total cost of only 24.00. This lathe was used every day and I did over $ 140,000.00 in cue repair for a Capitol investment of about 1,500.00. Very impressive indeed!
I have owned their CNC machine for over 6 years and I have only needed to change the drive belt as a maintenance item also on that machine. As you know our industry is very small and everyone interfaces at some point in time. I have never heard anyone knock or talk ill of Unique's products. If fact everyone I know has shared the same experience as I have described here.
So your comparisons to your Do it yourself piece meal to Unique's business model with reference to cost point is just a ridiculous notion.
Shame on you for putting out the notion that you are shocked when viewing there prices reflects that they are charging too much for their fine products in a public forum. If you want to buy components and put together a DIY deal in your basement for you friend that is one thing but comparing that endeavor to what Unique Products does is just plain rude and insensitive with reference to someone else's business.
JMO,
Ricky