Tiling

[JohnWittkamper]

Can desktop machine "tile" the work piece so longer material can be machined ? Something similar to the handibot using the creeper to do longer material pieces.

[bleeth]

Nope. The tiling has to be done by the software. But once it is done you can move your piece through a registration point procedure (there are different ways to do it but all are essentially the same) on the cnc and cut longer panels. You do it by hand though. No machine controlled roller system for moving the board.
You can do this on any open ended flatbed cnc regardless of tool size.

[scottp55]

I see Dave answered while I was looking for pic of Desktop pumping out 1/4 sheets of ply at Trade Show doing TJ's chairs.
Yes, you have to manually move material through the Y-Axis and it's done using the "Tiling" feature in VCP8(Vectric's VCarve Pro)That come with all the machines. So limited to 24" width for actual carving.
Tutorial is here
http://support.vectric.com/tutorials/V8/Tiling/Tiling_2DTP.html

It can be as simple as leaving a space between batches and eyeballing like in first pic, using a pencil mark like in my computer shelf, or using a reference dowel like in Bill Young's Desktop Wedging Jig.

[markevans]

As already mentioned, you can manually index and lay down pins or dowels to make the move precise. I would not try to drag a piece along with a bit unless the piece is skinny and light. One last thing you could do if you are going to need to do it a lot would be to rig a B axis, don't know if anyone has done this on a desktop but all the support is there in the software. You would use the same B axis driver you would use to drive an indexer.