Thought I'd share a picture or two...

[harryball]

Mr. Bot. Don't let the clean fool you, that's not normal. We moved some things around today, added a new work table and cleaned up.


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Front view with my vac system power switches, one for each quad.


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I had this unique and brilliant idea for a work station... then decided this one was much easier :-)


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Horse & owner stall name plaques. I have a jig that a blank fits into ready to vcarve.


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Robert

[ed_lang]

Looks great!
I don't even have the walls finished let alone painted in my shop. My floor looks that good when my 11 year old decides he needs some extra money and is in the push broom mode...... not too often I might add.

Your fixture looks good and the cutouts to grab the sign is a great idea.

Would love to see more shots of the shop if you have time.

[fleinbach]

Great-looking shop. I wish mine looked that good and I just spent last weekend cleaning it.

I figured I would start with a clean shop to add vacuum to my table finally after two years in the planning. I have a new board installed and will be cutting the plenum today. I may have gone a bit overboard, as I am installing 13 zones. But I figured it couldn't hurt just cost a little more.

[harryball]

The walls are tile board, I can hose the place down if I had to and their are drains in the floor.

The entire shop is only 30x40 and is disguised as a 3 car garage on our house. It's attached, my requirement. It was originally built and intended as a shop. If I had it to do over again I'd go 40x60. We'd originally discussed it but it would over power the house.

As it is, I'm remodeling what was to be a game room and converting it into office, shipping and painting, all the clean stuff. That'll give us another 500 sqft or so to work with and get some of the storage out of the shop itself.

Robert

[brian_h]

Assuming you're married, your wife must be very understanding. Nice pictures

I assume you have prox. switches to zero your bot. The jig must go exactly in the same position every time. How accurate do you think the positioning is? If you took a plaque from a month ago and re-cut it, do you think it would be off at all? 1/8"? 1/16"? I've wanted to do that experiment to aid in developing a system where something gets cut, then removed from the bot and worked on, then gets re-mounted for further work. In theory, it should work. In theory...

[fleinbach]

Brian,

The repeatability using prox switches is absolutely phenomenal. To test this theory I drilled a quarter inch hole at 3 foot on the X axis and 3 foot on the Y axis about a year ago. When I zero the machine and send it back to that spot. I can run the bit down in the hole, and it is still dead on.

[mikejohn]

Brian
I zero on a pre-determined place on the jig

.......Mike

[harryball]

I am married, she is involved in the shop too. We both work out there all hours. Habitat For Bats is a family passion. I'm working hard to expand income streams, we currently make about 35% to 40% of what we need from HforB directly, our goal is/was 50% by year end. We started the year at 0%.

I've not worried over repositioning of the jig all that much. I zero to a mark on the corner of the jig and then jog to 4,4 and run the plaque carve file with an offset. I realize if I ever tried to start a plaque, remove the jig and replace it and try to finish I'd have alignment issues. On that note though, I just checked plaques I ran on different days and the horse head is about 1/32" different on each.

This "zeroing on the prox switches"... I read a blurb about it but have not done it. Is there a proceedure published somewhere I can grab and try?

Robert

[brian_h]

Thanks, Frank, Mike, and Robert.

Frank: Now the brain is really having fun thinking about how to take advantage of that. I like ideas where you combine the best of hand skill and machine accuracy and speed.

[scott_smith]

Robert,
You gotta get a set pf prox switches, you’ll love it. Image this, starting up the SB, hitting C3 to zero the X&Y, zero the Z and start cutting. A fixture like the one you show would simply align with the edge of the machine bed that was trued up by the machine its self so you know it’s at 0,0. With that said, if you go with the ShopBot sensors put a little hot melt glue on the edge of them to keep them from twisting out of alignment if bumped. That’ll wreck your day also.

Scott

[gene]

Hi All,
I purchased the prox switches when i bought the bot a few years ago but i got confused when i looked at the way they go on ( its easy for me to get confused ) does anyone have a detailed diagram on the way i should mount theese switches?
If so many thanks , Gene

[randy]

Gene, is this what you are looking for?

http://shopbottools.com/files/SBD135_040714Prox%20Switches,%20PRTalpha.pdf (http://shopbottools.com/files/SBD135_040714Prox%20Switches%2C%20PRTalpha.pdf)

The switches mount the same way on the PRT and the Alpha. Not sure about the wiring.

[harryball]

Mine has prox switches... since my bot was a show bot that came assembled I've seen them but didn't fully realize their potential. Since I didn't have to install them I never read through the accessories section of the manual. I did so this morning. Great idea and it works!

Robert

[gene]

Hey thats it.
now the next problem is where did i put them. I am bad at putting things so i know right where they are never to be seen again. I realized this when i found the cat in the freezer. ( just joking) he was in the refrig, and drinking my beer. dang cat... Thanks Randy and R ball