It is not available at every Home Depot unfortunately.

I remember seeing a video on that on one of the Vectric discs. I have never run a texturing project so I am eager to see your result.

Pete
It was not available at my Home Depot either, but had free shipping. And it was faster to have it shipped to my home rather than the Home Depot store. Mine has arrived, I opened it just to check it out. I like the look/feel of it, I would think it should machine nicely (but haven't got to use it yet)...but have my first sign job :)
Mark

Faster speeds/slower RPM than hardwood, else you'll melt the plastic back onto itself.
I run my router as slow as it'll go, prob. 11k RPM and 150ish IPM.

Texturing as we speak.....
I can already see that orienting the line of cut along the Y-Axis would be beneficial, there are a lot of starts and stops and the Y-car is lighter than the Gantry...
This will be a test of how good my machine really is.

Thanks Darren....I hope to do a test cut soon...I will use your numbers.
Mark

Just a guideline, Mark....Your Mileage may Vary.

Darren,
I cut acrylic and polycarbonate at 8000RPM at 100 ipm. HDPE will melt at this speed, I am thinking PVC is probably fairly close in terms of machining speeds and feeds. Your opinion; have you ever cut HDPE?

I have not cut HDPE. My router wont go below 11k, (Super PID is mounted but not hooked up yet..) I bumped the speeds to 150 IPM to increase the chipload.

Texture cut first.
http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/...pszjviyran.jpg

Then pockets
http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8jeniawv.jpg

Finished up.
http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/...psbj3clcbq.jpg

Another zero out of pocket practice piece I can use.

Looks good. I wish we could get that around here. The only thing they offer is 4" wide trim.

Looks excellent Darren, well done. That spoil board has seen a bit of work!

I'm impressed also.... down the road I am going to need to purchase a good cadcam so for now am just evaluating them while I get along with free cambam

Thanks guys.
Bruce, I wondered who would comment on that.
Its the second one its had.
I had an idea of paneling the shop walls with the old spoilboards, but never got the motivation.

Looks nice. I have been think about the same thing for my mail box.

BTW, did you ever get a chance to test the pen holder you bought?

Darren,

Interesting dust collector foot you have. How long have you been using it? It looks like the two pieces are about 0.5" thick? I would like to hear more about your Dust foot.

I was going to suggest you make art out of the old spoilboards, I have seen some online. The trendy types would love unique art on the walls of their multi-million dollar apartments :)

Nils, post 475 has a pic. I have 3 bottom shoes that have 1" 2" and 3" strip brush held on with rare earth magnets and alignment pins. Works well, and allows tailoring brush length to the project and bit projection. Probably has 15-20 hrs use. Works well.

Heres a pic showing the three together.

http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1vmagcsi.jpg

Where did you get the brushes for the foot?

They came from Grainger. About $15 each if I recall correctly.

At 15$, there really affordable !!
I & lots of others got theirs from McMaster carr (#7273T5) and there is also from Precision brushes ;)

I asked before about if anyone has used natural horse hair brushes. I am thinking about making a shoe with it.

There is a fine line with regards to bristles....Too soft and they get sucked into the bit or collection tube, too stiff and they act as a "pole vault" and cause the z car to jump teeth on the rack.
That is why I have 3 different lengths of bristles, they are fairly stiff, but I can use one that matches the bit length I'm using.

That I am aware of. I have 3in bristles and the shoe is always in contact with spoilboard. It will flex over 1.5" material fine. I have my shoe attached to the Y car with 2 brass thumb screws to lock in the height setting.

I figured you knew, Pete, you are a sharp cookie.
My comment was more for someone who may stumble in later and read this.
My shoe is attached to the router, and as such moves with the Z, so deep plunges have to be taken into consideration.

Darren, how did you go with your sharpie holder? I pulled the trigger and bought one, just waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully our sharpies fit :)

I doodled out a couple things. It works well for what I've done. Still want to do the Spirograph thing.

Just as an FYI to future builders.
With the talk of cooling fans and such lately, I decided to snap a couple pics of my heatsink setup. If you look close, you can see the hole pattern for the Geckos.
2 summers of 100+ F. heat and no hiccups. The second shot shows the MDF dust that gets everywhere, which is why I decided not to vent the box to ambient air with a fan and filter setup.

http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/...psp3ibxzbs.jpg

http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/...psgppryrlp.jpg

Nice setup. Expensive heatsink at that size or not if I judge the size correctly ? I was looking into that a while ago and was surprised at what they ask for such a part (here in the EU)
Do you have a good dust-extraction and still that much fine dust ?

The heatsink was about $85.

I have good collection, but cant get it all.

$85 :eek:
I only spent 1/4 of that for mine....

Also by having an outside mounted heatsink then the drivers are also mounted to the side of the cabinet. This frees up a lot of space on the back of the control panel.

Ken, maybe you could share a link?

Did the same on No11, my heatsink is much narrower (just a bit wider than the Geckos) but works very well, no dust inside and NO overheating (plus I have space for the 5th Gecko)

Heat sinks from SCRs out of old welders and from the back of smaller scrap VFDs are also usable. If you find one, it will save you cash. It should be noted any heat sink will not work effectively without a thermal compound to fill the interface gap. Just sitting on the heat sink is not good enough.

My external mount heat sink here
I bought the new heat sink in local electronics shop off the shelve, RM16.00 (less then US$5) each .

Ken, we could not 1/4" x 12"x 12" aluminum for that price here.

You could go for something smaller, over design is costly...
Don't think your year round ambient temperature can be much higher then where I'm from :p
Mine were not 12" wide... more like 3", less fins, 2 board on one heat-sink. I figured if a bare aluminum place with a recirculating fan can work, any heat sink with fins will do just fine. and it did :)
What matter most is that it works! AND most importantly I could afford it :D
#ps, my secret is having a IR thermometer :D

I like your solution Ken.
I would have went that route had I been able to find them for that price locally.
This discussion reaffirms the need for people to do their own research and not be so hung up on a BOM being available. We've both deviated from the initially recommended build, you for $10 US, me for $85 US, with identical results.
I like this type of discussion.