OpenBeam vs Misumi

I spotted a sale on Makerwhatever site for Openbeam basic set. $137 for beams, corner connectors, and vitamins.

I added up the overall length and it is 6,920 MM

If you ordered the same sized pieces pre-cut from misumi, it is $96 for 1515. However, how useful is a 60MM piece eh? so, instead of ordering separately, you can do this:

12 pieces 1515, 600MM each, total 7200 MM: $3.12 ea total of $37.44. The aluminum is very easy to cut on a chop saw with blade of at least 60 teeth. Cut it nice and slow and you'll have some sweet edges. Loud as heck, but it's great. Then you can tap the center holes if you want, and drill a cross hole for some nice square strong connections.

The other thing I don't like about the OpenBeam set is the longest piece is 300MM (just shy of 12 inches)... So I can only really make a 12x12x12 cube?

Anyone use OpenBeam? Is there some kind of magic dust included for that price?

I love Misumi. They are cheap (for some products), fast, good service, etc... They even gave every new customer 150$ in store credit, no strings attached a while back. That was just crazy.

About the only bad thing I can say is that their webpage can be confusing, and their products are ridiculously configurable which makes things even more confusing. Once you figure it out you can get accurate CAD of every single part number (including alterations) which is just amazing though.

I haven't figured out how to use their cad parts in Solid Works yet

Would love to design my frame using their 3030 extrusion cad parts.

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thetazzbot
I haven't figured out how to use their cad parts in Solid Works yet

They offer downloads in solidworks format. It comes as a macro file that you need to run. They do this because .sldprt files are not compatible between versions, but macros are.

Sometimes it is easier to download just the dxf cross section and extrude it yourself so you don't need to download the same part in a dozen different lengths.

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691175002

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thetazzbot
I haven't figured out how to use their cad parts in Solid Works yet

They offer downloads in solidworks format. It comes as a macro file that you need to run. They do this because .sldprt files are not compatible between versions, but macros are.

Sometimes it is easier to download just the dxf cross section and extrude it yourself so you don't need to download the same part in a dozen different lengths.

Ah... That's how you use that DXF Didn't think of that, and that's way better because of the length problem. Thanks for the tip!