I'm awaiting details on the tooling. At 29 strokes per min.sec, I wonder about the lifecycle of dies. From my ironworker experience I know that after a thousand punches or so, tooling needs to be changed out. With a nibbler you don't punch a full hole at once, but still, I am curious. I used a Heck once, and the ad is a tad misleading about saving time over CNC design because you lose that same time on cutting a manual template. But I got out of CNC because I hated all the software issues, so I guess you have to pick your poison. Something they don't mention in the vid, which I learned when I got to try one, is that the newer double sided tapes on the market are strong enough to secure templates, making clamps unnecessary on many occasions. The tape also has the advantage of raising the template slightly above the material, which is needed for getting the die to follow the template. The machines are pretty durable; even the smaller one I am looking at is 130 lbs. The bigger model is almost 500 lbs. of Meehanite casting. I think their niche is freehand one-offs, or a few small parts at once. You have to be willing to spend the time on the template if you want consistent results.
I should stop writing about this now...I feel my self-discipline waning.
