Re: plans to fabricate a robotic arm or APC for a desktop homemade CNC mill

Hi Dave, others,

Thanks for the info. At first, I was thinking of using a sherline type
cnc desktop mill. Now with feedback from this group, a moving gantry
will be a better idea. I remembered eyeing 1 desktop moving cnc gantry
router years ago. Now I can't remember the site anymore. At the time I
was looking at it, that moving gantry was fabricated using white
plastic I think. I believe they use a Dremel type head. The name Dave
Rigotti, hobbycnc keep cropping up but I know it is not hobbycnc but
something similar. Theirs is a ready to use machine, not plans. Hope
someone here can help jog my memory

Enviromen

-- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "turbulatordude"
<dave_mucha@y...> wrote:

>
> --- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Enviromen" <enviromen@g...>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Does anyone have, or know where to find plans to fabricate a robotic
> > arm or automatic pallet changer (APC) for a homemade CNC mill? What
> I
> > hope to do is this:
> > 1. desktop CNC mill engrave on wood
> > 2. robotic arm unload wood or APC1 move out to make way for APC2
> > 3. robotic arm load new wood or APC2 move into desktop CNC mill
> > 4. desktop CNC mill engrave on new workpiece
> > 5. process 1-4 repeated.
> >
> > If this is too difficult to fabricate, where can one purchase them?
> >
> > Thanks
>
>
> It would seem you want to load stock onto the machine, engrave it,
> then unload and re-load.
>
> It is not that hard of a concept and making such a unit work
> flawlessly would in my opnion, depend on the stock.
>
> If you can use 12 foot boards, than cut out the part(S), feed, cut,
> feed, cut, then it would be much simplier than if you had a finished
> plaque that much be perfectly alligned.
>
>
> What you would have is almost 2 independant machines.
>
> How many blanks do you need between manual loading ?
>
> How many parts can be made from one cutter ?
>
> I think if you balanced parts to cutter or had some hours of work
> between loading it might help determine the size machine.
>
> I can envisoin a couple ways of doing it. But it mostly depends on
> the size and type of blanks/stock.
>
> The robotic arm is just a small piece of the project, and may not be
> the best choice.
>
> Here's an idea, a long gantry machine with two gantries. one is the
> engraving end, the other parts end. someone stacks parts, the pick-
> up pulls a part, then deposits it in the alignment section.
>
> The alignment occurs and the part is placed on a fixture and cpamped.
>
> the fixture is mounted on a rotating arm. when one part is done, the
> arm rotates swapping finished part for new. the finished part is
> then placed on the 'done' section of the machine.
>
> As you can imagine, the whole parts loading, alignment and unloading
> is a machine in and of itself.
>
> Even if you had a stack of blanks and did something similar with the
> alignment and clamping and used an arm to exchange parts, the whole
> parts swapping would need to run independantly from the cutting.
>
> Dave