New SGBlade rig

The reason custom machined stuff can be expensive is all about the time and effort it takes the machine shop to make it.

Take a zacuto Z riser or similar for example. Thats a complicated part, chamfers and fillets all over it. Requires four or five axis machining. Not many of those about, so there is a premium on that to begin with. Someone had to design the part, so they have to pay them. At the machine shop, someone has to program that into the machine. They cant just take the 3D file and press GO and cut one out, they have to go through and program the part in, tell the machine what to cut first, all the tool paths and tool changes. This could take afew days for a Z riser or similar complicated part.

Next, they have to make the bits. Often, they will have to go through the machines tool turrets and change the tools out for the ones that are needed for that part that is being cut. If the machine usualy cuts steel or titanium etc, then they could have to change all the cutters for ones mroe suited to whatever material is being cut.

Then they have to clamp the material down, which sounds simple but can take a while depending on what the machine was doing before. They then have to cut one side of the part, and then (this is the difficult bit) flip it over and machine the other side, alligning it so the machine cuts line up. This can literaly take hours to probe on one part. In higher runs, they might make a jig to hold the part, which is a complicated and large machine, and reprisents a significant up front investment.

Some parts with very tight radius's or very small channels might have to be EDM sparked or wire cut, which is an extremly slow pricess. Cutting out something the size of a Z riser can literaly take hours, and thats just to cut one part. Spark eroding requires custom electrods that wear away and expire after a certain number of cycles.

After all that, they have to cut it out of the main material, bead blast it, anodize it, open the threads up, assemble it, package it etc.

They are making low runs of these things, probably 50 at a time, and your a more or less paying someone to sit there and flip your parts over 50 times.


You look at it and see it as a bit of aluminium, but if you go through the process that it took to make it, you would see how complicated it really is, and how many people and how many hours have to be paid for in the process, and this is why seemingly simple parts can cost so much to produce, and why zacuto prices are so high. In actuality, if you reverse engineered a zacuto product, and took it to a local machine shop, the price they would quote you would probably have you in a body bag. I would estimate a machine shop would charge about £1200 to produce one Z riser as a one off.

Really, the zacuto stuff is NOT overpriced.
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Maybe not overpriced - but exclusive. Many people, like me, still don't want to pay $850 for a couple of handles.. But I see your point.

- Edvin -
 
Wayne,
The new achromat then is only for the flip module.
I was thinking of getting the non-flip, because I like the form factor better, less glass in the path, and I don't need it with my marshall monitor which I can flip and the EX1 LCD you can flip.
Since the new achromat affords better use with the EX1/EX3, do you suggest getting the flip module for that reason alone, or is the non flip original achromat just as good for the EX1/EX3 in terms of edge sharpness and CA?
Hope this question makes sense.
 
As it stands, edge sharpness is better with the Non Flip Tube, CA is better with the FLIPmodule & new optics. There is not a huge difference between them, though.
 
hoarp001 was right only for EU or US. labour cost are so cheap in some part of the world. The last time i design made my own rod with quick release X Y adjustable camera plate , tripod plate and adaptor support. that only cost me $70 all up. All work was done by EDM as one off item.

For some part of the world Zacuto is very pricy when you could have 90% functionality for 10% price. All it take was one solidwork drawing to a local machine shop (or my own factory in my case) Would anyone like cheap rod system? If the demand is high I can see what I can do.
 
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