[culturestate]

It really depends how you define “hobbyist.” I’m a designer by training and I (mostly) always designed purely digital products, but after moving to PM and consulting for a couple IoT companies I’ve become very interested in industrial design and design for manufacturing.

I’m especially intrigued by next-gen manufacturing (automated/lights out, 3D metal, etc.), and would absolutely love to have a small 5-axis CNC mill and some kind of injection molding facility alongside the 3D printing capability I already have for prototyping. Each tool enables a different range of options for design and material.

This isn’t now and likely won’t be my profession any time soon, so I would very much consider myself a hobbyist in this space.

[thekhatribharat]

Check out https://www.pocketnc.com/ - desktop 5-axis CNC mills.

[culturestate]

I've looked at these, but if I went down this road it would take a fairly large commitment to begin with (I'd have to rent a separate shop) so I'd rather have something I could grow into, maybe a Datron C5 or similar.