Shopbot in cabinetshop

[siwoodworks]

Hello everyone. I am new here and I am looking for some information.
I am a one man cabinetshop and have been thinking about buying a Shopbot for sometime. My question is what kind of cutting time could I reasonably expect on 3/4" plywood? I would like to dado, drill for shelf pin holes, and cut the sheets up into their respective carcass pieces.
I realize there is a big difference in machines and setups, but some of the numbers I am getting don't make sense to me. On guy told me to expect about one hour per sheet. The demo I saw on the alpha looked like it was cutting a lot faster than
that. That is why I would like to get some information from some of you guys who are using the Shopbot on a regular basis.
I have a deposit down on a slider, but if the Shopbot would work I would definetly rethink that.

Thanks to all,
Chris

[myxpykalix]

If you take the perspective of a newbie, I haven't cut that much but the last thing i cut was a toybox out of 3/4 plywood. It used the whole sheet and cut box joints. I only ran it at 1.7 ips with a 1/4" stepdown so that was 3 passes to cut it out. That is a slow speed and 3 rotations to cut it out. It only took me 30 min or so. I know guys who cut at far faster speeds and deeper per pass. If you look at the pics It was a lot of cutting to do this so you might compare the cuts to what you have to make to get an idea. Others who cut cabinets might have a more comparable pics and better advice.

7559

7560

[cip]

Chris, I cut lots of 3/4 plywood. My average per sheet time is 8 to 12 min. depending on how many operations are done. ie dados, shelf pin holes etc. and the number of pieces per sheet.

In some cases it is easier and faster to cut on the table saw but most of the time I'm doing something else while the bot is cutting. There is where you really make the money.

The other real advantage is the odd shapes that take forever to produce, the bot does not care what the shape is it just cuts it and it takes no longer than a straight cut. And, the results are almost perfect.

Mike

[harryball]

I've had an Alpha since August, an hour per sheet for cabinets is way too long. I'm running cabinetpartspro to make entertainment centers for myself and cabinets for the shop and laundry room etc... I'm not a cabinet shop, we build bat houses but the principle is the same.

When cutting 1/2" ply I run a single pass at 6 ips. For 3/4" ply I'm running 2 passes at 6 ips. This is all with 1/4" bits. If I jump up to 3/8" bits I suspect the speed could increase. I'm also running a 4HP HSD Spindle. With a router you may have to slow down. Once I decided to see what this baby could do, loaded a 1/4" up cut bit and started cutting scrap 3/4" plywood in one pass, 4 ips, 6 ips, 8 ips, 10 ips... I was expecting bit breakage at some point, never got it and the spindle never strained. I'm comfortable at 6 ips and it "sounds" better to me taking 3/4 in 2 passes. 10 ips at one pass running wide open I think was asking too much and I'd probably see something bad happen eventually. These were short 2' runs to experiment on.

I cut bat house baffle roost grooves at 12 ips at .02" deep with a 1/8" carbide bit. There is no jogging involved, the grooves run the full length of the table every 1/2" on a full sheet. Then the bot cuts out the panels with the same 1/8" bit in 2 passes.

I've also found a fair amount of custom jobs since I have so much extra shop time now. We can run a full months bat house production in a couple of days vs. the entire month before. Cutting miles of roosting grooves is the biggest time saver for us.

I have 4 shop vac heads directly set onto a port for 1/4 of the table. If you search for my posts you'll see a thread about it with pictures. Each head is 4.5 HP and with them all on a sheet of plywood isn't going anywhere. You MUST get trupan or ultralight MDF for your bleeder board though, not regular MDF.

Hope that helps,
Robert

[sawkerf]

Chris, I too run a one man shop. The single best business decision I've made in 10 years was to buy my Bot. I use KCDw and Artcam Insignia software. My hardware along with the Bot includes a Milwaukee router (better than the PC IMHO)and a 6.2HP vac pump. If I Could I would upgrade to a spindle and a vac bigger pump. The bot will handle any thing you can give it. The router and vac system are more of a limiting factor. That being said, I can cut out 10 sheets of 3/4 ply with dados and system holes and 10 sheets of 1/4 ply backs and drawer bottoms in about 8 hours. That's pretty darn good. Good Luck, Kip

[brian_h]

Hey, Robert. I'd love to see any pictures of cabinets or entertainment centers cut with the bot. I'm like many others. I bought the bot to do one task, but since it's just sitting there...

So, do you call your car the "bat-mobile"?

[harryball]

I drive a bat truck, large black and grey F350. Still needs proper lettering but she looks great.

I'll have go get some pictures of the entertainment centers. I'm still working on the kids, the base is installed, now I have to get the uppers done. It's a corner unit.

The one for my parents is simple. I didn't choose the colors but it still looks pretty good.

Robert

[Ryan Patterson]

I have some video of my Alpha cutting ¾” prefinished maple plywood (import). http://www.cabinetpartspro.com/sbcuttig2.wmv It shows cutting pocket holes with a 2.2 hp HSD, drilling holes with an air drill and cutting with 3hp Colombo. I am cutting in 1 pass with 3/8” compression bit 10”/sec at 17,500 rmp. I average 7 min per sheet. If the sheet I am cutting is nothing but cabinet sides with a lot of holes to drill it will take about 10 min to cut. If the sheet has nothing but shelves it will take about 2 to 4 min to cut depending on the size of the shelves. In a normal day at the shop I will cut up to 60 sheets in a day.

Ryan Patterson
www.cabinetpartspro.com (http://www.cabinetpartspro.com)

[siwoodworks]

Thanks for all the information guys. Those numbers sound a lot more realistic than one hour per sheet.
The same guy told me he had some parts cut out by
another shop that actually had the shopbot. Said all the parts were out of square and it was too slow to help him out. It sounds to me like he was dealing with someone that didn't know how to operate the machine properly or didn't set it up correctly.
I am trying to get information on the newer pst standard. At least that's what I think it's called. Anyway one of the reasons shopbot appeals to me is I can get in on the ground floor at a relatively low price and add things on as I pay it off and learn how to use it effectively.
I am not really needing blazing speed at the moment and thought starting off on the lower end and building up to a more advanced might be the ticket. If anybody has any thoughts, I would sure like to hear them.

[hines]

Chris, here is the info that was recently posted in the forum on the new bot.
http://www.shopbottools.com/teds_report.htm

[brian_h]

Thanks for the video, Ryan. I love seeing pictures and video.