On Feb 2, 10:41 am, "Wayne C. Gramlich" wrote:

It definitely does not fit the definition of a co-op. It is
pay to play. It is possible to reserve machines. They have
some machines that are simply not affordable for a home shop.
I hope they are not expanding too fast. Time will tell.

-Wayne

And pay it is! $100 per person per month, and you can't share it
among people. There are a couple of people in my shop who might want
to use some of their equipment, like the plasma cut table and the
Epilog laser cutter, but the said that we would have to buy a
membership for each person, even if only one was going to be there at
a time. Also, when I toured it (Menlo Park, CA), the equipment was
all either 30 year old worn out (they had a CNC with controls that had
to be at least 35 years old) or crappy Harbor Freight stuff I wouldn't
even buy for myself. I turned on a bench grinder and was seriously
afraid that it would fly apart. It was also housed in basically
converted office space, which was not very amenable to use as a
machine shop. The noise from the machinery penetrated all of the
rooms, including the computer area and such, where you might want
peace and quiet for working on complicated parts. It was also poorly
ventilated, and made up of a rabbit's warren of small rooms, far from
an efficient setup. They would have been better off in an old
industrial building.