Drawing with the ShopBot

[jamesgilliam]

Has anyone come up with an attachment that will hold a marker, crayon, etc.... that can be mounted on the z axis to draw on the stock. Jo-Anne and I have been doing alot of painted signs and using a 60*V-bit to do the inside lines for detail painting, but were thinking since the sharpness of the painted line is not really needed it would be better to just draw it on. Any ideas?? James

[Brady Watson]

James,
I haven't heard of doing exactly what you are describing...but, I know of a few botters that use a spring-loaded pen to use their bot as a plotter. You might want to start with that idea and go from there.

-Brady

[paco]

Or use a very small inclued angle bit tool... 45, 10, 7 deg. Which will not wear as fast as a "pen" on wooden surface... just a thought...

[gary_n]

Has anyone ever tried to use a bit with a double round over for this purpose? Just cut into the material about 1/32" or so and it will make a nice line.

[jthelen]

Brady,
Do you know where to get those spring loaded pens?
Jim

[Brady Watson]

Not specifically, no...but here are a few ideas I found on the net:

One (http://www.storm.ca/~rheslip/cnc.htm)

Two (http://www.users.uswest.net/~kmaxon/page/m_soft/m_p3.htm)

I'm sure there are other ways. One design that would work is to scrap the spring idea and get a piece of PVC pipe. Machine 2 circular disks...One with a tiny bit of play and another that tightly caps the bottom of the tube if viewed as mounted to the Z axis. Drill a hole in the center of both, slightly oversize in the bottom one...snug fit around the pen. Then gravity will hold the pen & adhered disk down, and still allow it to have some suspension, per se.

Just an idea that occoured to me...

-Brady

[yendor]

James,

I used to use spring loaded markers to check out programs years ago and they worked very well. I just can't remember the name of the company that made them. I do remember they had a very hard nylon tip and about .25 travel on the spring and were Euopean but were purchased from a US industrial supplier. They were only a few bucks back in the early 90's and just had to find the correct collet. I've been thinking about this idea lately to lay out metal parts I can't actually cut on my Bot.

Hope tihs helps and I'll post what ever I might find.