I have been waning to design a yoyo and I was wondering what a good web site would be to make all of the blue prints and lay out of the yoyo before bringing it to a machining shop.
I don’t know how to make the blue prints or what web site to use but I know that it is REALLY expencive to make a yoyo or have someone make it a a machine shop. My bud is tryin to make a throw and it is gonna cost 500 bucks to make one yoyo! The price will go down with quantity though. So unless you get a big bulk of yoyos and just 1 or 2 yoyos, you are looking at 500. But maybe you’ll get lucky and find a cheaper machine shop. Good luck, I wish I could find a nice blueprint site but I don’t know of one. Sorry.
Thanks, James Reed, Sick String! ;)
designs can be sketches or if you have access to or the money to buy a CAD software you can use it and design some legit stuff.
Cheers!!
-Mattylightning 
I have this and its a cool little program, its just kind of a pain in the butt to use. I haven’t had much time to play around w/ it but there are vids on the site that show you how to use it. Oh, and its FREE!!
WOW, $500!!! Per http://www.speedymetals.com/pc-2464-8368-2-rd-6061-t6511-aluminum-extruded.aspx the cost of 12"x2" rod of 6061 aluminum is $17.68, so that has to be all labor and one hell of a rip off too. Have your friend bring some info w/ him to that shop and see what the other $482.32 is for because that just doesn’t sound right.
XminusmikeX, aluminum is pretty cheap. Though if there is one thing I have learned from listening to Kyo it is that machine time is not cheap. Neither is setting up the machine to do one task, which makes prototyping expensive. The larger a run that is done, the more parts that set up time is spread over.
I hear that, my uncle owns a machine shop and I know it will be up there to run just one proto, but $500?! That’s just steep, I would think.
What kind of axle should I use? Also, what are the dimensions of a size c baring seat?
M4x.7 is an all around favorite. 8x32 is also a good one. The C sized bearing is .250"x.500"x.187" (1/4" x 1/2" x 3/16"). You have to remember to give some clearance between the outer race and the outer bearing seat.
I talked to BMX shop owner, who is actually closing his shop, and going into the industry to make parts. I was asking him about the CNC machines, and he said that it would be really expensive just to make one, because the machines have to be set up and the parts have to be all in the right areas and the liquids flowing and stuff, he said it would be easier to make a good amount of em because you could sell them and make the money back. I would like to make a prototype too, but doesnt look like it is going to happen.
Actually $500 isn’t that bad. You have to remember that you need to have them blueprint the yoyo. Then write a program for the machine. Then pay for someone to run the machine and still have money to pay the electric bill shop rent and all the other things.
For all those using Google Sketchup I found a free trial of Alibre is a ton easier! After 30 days you can also get a free version, supposedly. http://www.alibre.com/
I also found that this is the easiest way to make one in CAD. Make your basic sketch then revolve/rotate it around the axis its around. As seen here:
http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Contagon/TCYY%20-%20Cumorah/Cumorah2.jpg
The cost of making something has little to nothing to do with the material cost.
The cost in a proto is the setup time on the machine. If it takes you several hours to set up a machine, it means you have to pay for that time (it always takes a long time to set up)… then you have to test and tweak until it’s perfect. THEN you can make a part… and if you’re only making a few parts, you then have to break it all down again to do another job… that’s a lot of work for very little… so all of that cost gets slapped onto those very few parts you have.
If you make a full run of parts, the set up is the same… but you make a lot more parts very quickly… so the cost gets spread out across the run, making each of them cheaper.
There is another twist as well… the more advanced and high-tech the machine is… the more expensive it often is to set up. This makes prototype costs -huge- ($1k and up) but makes the actual cost of the run extremely low since they can make parts faster… so what type of machine the shop has can make a large impact on cost. Some shops will have cheaper prototypes, but very expensive production runs… others will be the opposite. The catch is, you need the same shop to do both things so you can guarantee quality of the work… so you have to pick which side you want to spend the money on.
Kyle
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So pretty much what everyone is saying is if I make a larger run of about ten yoyos the prices will be cheaper?
No, not 10… 100 or more.
10 isn’t much different than 1 really.
Kyle
So ten yoyos will not change the price much more than 1? What would be the average price of this on CNC machining?
easily $500 and possibly much more depending on the shop and how desperate they are for work… could run as high as $1,000
Kyle
Does anyone know of cheaper machining shops in the LA area?
I think that I’m gonna just buy a lathe. Who knows, maybe after enough practice I can machine it myself.
Not that I profess to be a machinist AT ALL… but why spend the couple hundred bucks on a lathe to “practice” only to lose interest and a fair amount of money? A manual lathe is no efficient for mass producing pieces, nor is it as accurate for consistency compared to CNC.
Not to cut anyone down, but I know how I can be impulsive, and lose interest FAST.