Chuck Keysor
11-21-2015, 11:32 PM
Hello Shopbot Friends:
Maybe this an old idea.... maybe it is a dumb idea, but here is what seems like a different way to use your Bot as a semi-computer controlled router...
I was asked to make 32 carved rectangles for a Victorian house. These panels are about 9" x 9", and are made of PVC. They are to be mounted in a "lattice" (pictured) that goes up at the peak of the front of a big Victorian house.
Someone else made the "lattice", and when the lattice was brought to my shop so I could fit in my carved rectangles into the lattice, I found the lattice had been constructed with badly fitted "half lap" joints. The exposed surface of the lattice should have been flat and smooth. But where the lattice boards over-lapped, they were not flush. The mis-match was between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch.
I thought, gee, there is excess thickness in the lattice, is there some way I could lay my lattice on the bed of my Bot, and use my 2 1/2" Amana planing bit to flatten the entire surface of the lattice?
I thought of several approaches to use the Bot to flatten this lattice, but they all seemed like too much work. I just wanted to do something simple, without any bother......
Then, either I had a brilliant stroke, or my brain broke :confused:. I unplugged the two x motors and the one y motor, set the Z height via the SB3 interface, and then manually guided the spinning flattening bit over the badly fitted half-lap joints to shave down only the areas that needed it. So I used the Bot as a giant hand-held router, where only the Z-height was computer controlled.
It actually worked pretty well, and as dumb as it may sound, I felt pleased for having thought outside of the box.
Well, for what it is worth, that is my backwards technological step with my Bot. Chuck
Maybe this an old idea.... maybe it is a dumb idea, but here is what seems like a different way to use your Bot as a semi-computer controlled router...
I was asked to make 32 carved rectangles for a Victorian house. These panels are about 9" x 9", and are made of PVC. They are to be mounted in a "lattice" (pictured) that goes up at the peak of the front of a big Victorian house.
Someone else made the "lattice", and when the lattice was brought to my shop so I could fit in my carved rectangles into the lattice, I found the lattice had been constructed with badly fitted "half lap" joints. The exposed surface of the lattice should have been flat and smooth. But where the lattice boards over-lapped, they were not flush. The mis-match was between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch.
I thought, gee, there is excess thickness in the lattice, is there some way I could lay my lattice on the bed of my Bot, and use my 2 1/2" Amana planing bit to flatten the entire surface of the lattice?
I thought of several approaches to use the Bot to flatten this lattice, but they all seemed like too much work. I just wanted to do something simple, without any bother......
Then, either I had a brilliant stroke, or my brain broke :confused:. I unplugged the two x motors and the one y motor, set the Z height via the SB3 interface, and then manually guided the spinning flattening bit over the badly fitted half-lap joints to shave down only the areas that needed it. So I used the Bot as a giant hand-held router, where only the Z-height was computer controlled.
It actually worked pretty well, and as dumb as it may sound, I felt pleased for having thought outside of the box.
Well, for what it is worth, that is my backwards technological step with my Bot. Chuck