Vacuum Forming Machine

Around 2004, I created an engineering startup, called VRIOtech, (later Arcanus Labs). Our initial goals were to develop low-cost virtual-reality hardware. At the time, we were prototyping a VR-input device and needed to create various housing and enclosures. Around this time, 3d-printing existed, but was way to costly; unlike today.

Since this was a prototype, the costs of having a handful of mold-injected models was insanely expensive. We experimented with casting resin-molds, but most of the results were rather poor.

Vacuuming-forming to the rescue. We looked into smaller units, that would be found in colleges and sadly the cheapest-used unit was going for about $5K. So we settled on building our own.

During a stop at Borders Books, I came upon a copy of David Gingery's "Build a Vacuum Forming Machine" and quickly snatched it up.

Said book proved to be a wealth of inforamtion; and we set out in using the book as a reference.

In our design, we created a differnt lifting mechanism, over the recommended jack.

I still possess this machine, to this very day, but havent used it in a few years. At some point I plan on revisitng and updating this machine.

A copy of said book can be found here: David Gingery's -- A Plastic Vacuum Forming Machine.

If you like building machines I'd say check out his various books; there's a wealth of knowledge there.