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Bob, any details you can share on your new machine? It sounds like you're hacking on an industrial scale.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been up to my neck in meetings and pitches all week. Who knew that founding a start-up is a lot of work?

The details thus far are as follows:

The 'base' machine is a Standard Router 44-3125...pretty much the same as this : http://www.centroidcnc.com/cnc_router.htm except mine came with a two-zone solid aluminum vacuum table and three (3!) 18K ER32 spindles. It's a 48x48 working area with an 8" Z stock. I bought mine used and in working order from a shop in Rhode island

The control is going to be replaced with a Dynomotion KFLOP pretty much as soon as I can power it up. The control cabinet is better documented and much less proprietary than the Fadal was, so I expect the control retro to take one or two days tops.

The X and Y axis motors / ballscrews are going to be replaced with two 1000N peak Hiwin linear motors I picked up on eBay for a steal. No screws so no lead screw error or backlash, and both the motor coil and the load are reading off the same linear encoder. Silly acceleration and feeds possible, and I'm much too afraid to ever come close to maxing those out. Excited about the contouring accuracy.

I was planning on putting an ATC on at the start, but I spent my ATC budget on the linear motors so that'll have to wait 'til sometime next year.

I'll be replacing most of the Z axis: new C2 or better ballscrew, boosting up the whole axis to get at least 15" of Z, and probably adding some mass for damping. The linear motor will shove around a 400 lb Z carriage at the speeds I need, so there's lots of room to add mass.

Right now I'm waiting for the power company to hook up my 3-phase (only been back and forth with them for the last three months)...word is that it'll happen within a couple weeks. Which is, of course, exactly when I'll be leaving for the holidays and unable to work on the machine. When I get back in January I'll be going at it with a vengeance, or at least as much vengeance as I can spare after my duties to the new company are met. Spending most of my days right now with my two partners doing the 'Dragons Den' (or Shark Tank, if you prefer) thing talking to investors. Lots of upside, but hard on the head.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

You mean there was one of these machines in my neighborhood and I didn't know about it? You should have stopped in to say hi when you were down here at least!

Looks Awesome. Those linear motors are incredible.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

5G acceleration

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Hey Bob,

Regarding the Kmotion software - does it include a backplot type of feature?

Although I have no intention of switching from Mach3 any time soon, I'm also not a big fan of Mach3. It does however have two features that I'm quite addicted to, one of which is the back plot that also shows the tool's current position. For me anyway, it's a very easy way to make sure that my clamps and so forth are out of the way when doing one off type of parts.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

What type of business are you starting up? Good luck with whatever it is...!!!

Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Wow, crazy stuff!

Certainly does:
http://www.dynomotion.com/Help/KMotionCNC/GCodeViewerScreen.htm



Only 0.5G with a 450lb table / Z axis, but it'll do! I'm capping the top speed, as there's nothing stopping a runaway table after 4' at those accels. Tuning them is going to be terrifying.



Wouldn't have missed the chance: I got it trucked in.



We're developing a performance enhancing tech for the athletic bracing market. It went from an idea in September to five investor meetings this coming week...it's enough to give you whiplash.

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

That will be an amazing machine Bob!

Those linear motors are crazy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhcZBr38Kmc
And the comments for that video are pretty funny.

Looking forward to developments