I’m new to CNC, and am starting a boat enclosure fabrication business. For that, I will need a tool head that will cut fabric - I don’t think a drag knife will produce the results i’m looking for, so I want to add a tangential knife, either a rotary cutter or an oscillating. In addition, I need to be able to mark the fabric with a pen/chalk/sharpie depending on the fabric type.
I also happen to enjoy woodworking, so I don’t want to loose the spindle from the CNC.
So….my question - what would be required/how would you setup a machine that has a spindle, a tangential knife and a marking pen? I feel like the Acorn doesn’t have enough axis for this and I’d need the AcornSIx, but really I don’t know. I’m thinking you need axis 4&5 for the tangential (up/down and rotate) and axis 6 for the pen (up/down). I’m also wondering if getting the extended gantry is enough to support this.
I’ll stop there and thanks for any ideas or examples of how you’ve done this.
If you don’t need a rotary axis you can use that axis port for your tangential knife.
Even though the Acorn only has 4 motor ports, we are only using three for 4 motors…
Z and X have their own port, and Y is duplicated to both gantry Y motors, leaving the last port for your rotary, or in your case the tangential knife support.
As far as IO, depending on the knife you pick there should be enough IO left to handle it. I a case where there’s not you can add an IO expander (called Ether1616) sold by Centroid, or you can wait a few months and buy our “Aux box” that we’re releasing for ATC that has an Ether1616 in it with a bunch of IO.
Thanks Eric, do I not also need a separate Z to move the knife independent of the spindle? Or do you move them together, and the fact that there is no bit in the spindle allows the knife to contact the work surface first? I just discovered there are pen holders that fit in spindle collets, so that takes care of my plotting needs - although if the above is true (single Z) then I would need to do the plotting operation first, then remove the pen adapter and perform the cutting.
It sounds like you want Avid’s laser mount kit, without the laser, and mount your knife on it. That way you can unload the spindle’s tool, extend the knife, do your cutting, retract the knife, reload the pen into the spindle, draw… etc.
Or, of course, you could use the laser to do your cutting… how up to date is your fire insurance?
Funny, a laser cutter was where I started - I decided I didn’t want to deal with exhausting fumes and potential fires. Also, there are many textiles you don’t want to cut with a laser due to the fumes produced. What you say about the laser kit makes sense, except I also need a motor to rotate the knife blade - that’s why I’m thinking I need a 5 axis controller - but maybe there is an easy way around it that I’m not seeing because of my inexperience.
Here’s my setup with a pen - wide tip in case you need an example. Kind of kills me to turn a 10k CNC machine into a few hundred dollar pen plotter but, heh, it works! Lol!
That’s the type of pen holder I found yesterday. One of my issues solved. Just need to figure out the knife. I’m going to call on Monday to discuss it with Avid.
I have never been a fan of Mill Aluminum so worked with the Avid staff to have their manufacturer use black anodized. It was a surprisingly inexpensive change - like maybe 100 bucks. They couldn’t do the verticals. Photos attached.
