Phlatformer v2

Hello,
I have been looking around for a vacuum forming machine for a long time, and could not find one that was either in my price range or was safe enough for me to want in my home.
The Phlatformer answers both of these requirements... Unfortunately, it was not available in either cut-out or open-source form.... So I set out to reverse engineer one from the pictures on the net that are available.
I finished the design of the first iteration, and cut one out for my nephew - who (hopefully) is using it now.
Having finished the first version and rolled in the couple of 'oops' that inevitably make it through, I was looking into how to release the files for others to use as well....
I PM'd Mark and asked if he had any objections to releasing this and he (graciously) suggested that it get posted here, with the build of the next iteration.
Mark really did an awesome job with this design... I truly thank him for the opportunity to share it here.
I have designed everything in SolidWorks, DXF'd out to ArtCam and created toolpaths for Mach3.
I will post all of those files here, along with anything new that is learned from the new iteration.
Once the machine is finished, I will convert the design files to Sketchup, for those that do not use SolidWorks.


I'll post a couple of pictures to start...


The sectioned picture shows the heart of the unit.
Please let me know if this is useful for folks and if there is any interest in putting more effort into this thread.

... I hesitate to post all of the files right away, because there are some issues still outstanding to sort through, before it is truly complete (like the distance between the holes on the hinge, the flange bolt pattern for the vacuum hose adapter, etc.....) - and I would not want someone to expend the effort on wood and cutting without knowing that it is correct.
VR,
Bruce