FrankenRouter

[Garyhlucas]

Well after 4 years I finally got the FrankenRouter up and running for the high school FIRST Robotics team. Why the name? It was built from the carcass of watering machines I built almost 30 years ago and donated to us by the customer. The PLC and most of the electrical is from the machine too.  The control enclosure, shop vac, and the coolant pan are from a junkyard. Steppers are ex-Tormach.
Its a very special machine. 24” x 48” x 7” axis, on wheels and fits through a 35” school door so it goes in our closet. Full enclosure and flood coolant. Main door is vertical and powered up and down.  Main and rear door can be raised an inch so a full 4x8 sheet of plywood can be cut by passing it through.
Control is Acorn and CamBam. Z axis, Spindle clamp and caster mounts are lost foam castings I machined on my homebuilt CNC.

[lloydsp]

That's cool, Gary! 

Now, install two indexing pins at exactly the 24" mark on one edge (12" off center) on what you would call the 'trailing edge' for feeding in a 4x8 sheet.  Have any job on a big sheet drill two matching holes in the opposite edge of the envelope, so that you can slide the sheet over and insert the pins to 'index' the sheet for the next 2' of routing on a 4x8.  That way, you could have a continuous pattern over the entire sheet with calibrated indexing of the stock.

I find myself having to do that (even on my 50 x 100 routers) on work I must flip to do two-sided stuff.

Lloyd

[dave benson]

Good on you for helping the kids out, more people should do it.

[Garyhlucas]

Llyod,
Thanks for that tip, we will use it to cut out field elements which are large.

I forgot to mention we have a 4th axis that is getting permanently mounted on the left front corner and the extra PLC can supply the high speed stepping so it can be run as a lathe spindle too.

[EddyCurrent]

I can see there's been a lot of thought put into it, such as fitting through s doorway, excellent job.
Good idea about using a PLC, I have an old Mitsubishi FX0 with transistor outputs and might get that fired up some time.