Ron, I'm a hobbiest, I do this to keep me out of bars. Actually, at the moment I'm on a train at 75MPH running down the US east coast - work always interferes.

My MM (#10) is up and running, upgraded to a chinese spindle, and I'm playing with both vacuum hold-down, and with Google sketchup to produce the snap-together geometry from the MIT architecture research that led to Physical Design Co. (Check out the work of Lawrence Sass and his team if you're interested in the background).

I meant to release my Sketchup to Gcode plugin some months ago, but then the fall busy season happened, so it's delayed.

In the meantime, I cut ornaments for our Xmas tree, and other small toys for the kids when I can, and I try to give helpful comments based on my build and theatre experience. In this case, I was just appreciating the very practical and well thought out design work.

Brad,If I can be of any assistance to your vacuum hold down concept,feel free to pm.
Larry sass and co. sound a little like Frank lloyd Wright philosophy.Got to love the days when our youth were creative,inspired and excited about thinking outside the box.(One small step for a man,One giant leap for mankind).

We have a couple of MM's lined up side-by-side, thus "side" loading is out of the question. It is easy to get used to "end" loading, but then you do need the space at the end.

When you are in the habit of end-loading, the risk of bumping the gantry is minimal - I guess the side-loaders have to be a lot more cautious about bumping the gantry? We don't have problems with using unskilled labour to do the end-loading.

If I was inclined to do a MM design for side-loading, I would think of lowering one side only . . . . .

Hi Gerald,Here's a couple of pictures that might better explain this design.I spent a few years powerlifting and I am in good health.The exercise of lifting material is not a issue.Still the balance of the commercial shop as you well know, requires a intelligent and efficient shop layout to be competitive and hope we say,profitable.Although each shop may differ from one another,commonly we all love convenience.
These pictures show how easy it is to not lift,but to slide the sheets from the truck to the cart,then to the machine.The gantry is never in the way,as it automatically homes to the far end of the table after each file cut.
Regarding the design, after cut, the parts are easily accessed from each side ,without the effort of stretch.From my shops point of view,I don't know how to make it any easier.My only real complaint, is the refusal of the parts to assemble themselves.http://www.mechmate.com/forums/images/icons/icon10.gif

To consider a raised rail design for our use.The drawback would require end loading only.Because our parts are spread throughout the table,how do we efficiently remove those parts? Would we start by removing parts from end (a) ,leaving the gantry parked in the center, then walk around the back of the machine to remove those parts?Do I stretch to reach the parts left under gantry,or do I choose to move the gantry again to expose those parts left in the center and dare risk taking those parts over the raised rails with more obvious concerns.This table design is only a 4x8 footprint .If I had chosen a larger, say 5x12 foot table, these issues would be compounded.http://www.mechmate.com/forums/images/icons/icon9.gif

Ron consider having about 200 sheets of 9' x 6' in stock, about 15 varieties in colour, thickness, type stacked on edge in a "library". Opposite the stacks are 4 MM's side by side with 0,0 home away from from the stacks. In this scenario I see no benefit of lowered side rails. Anyway, I hadn't meant to argue one style over another . . . . this is the MechMate site and it is a lot different to what you built. Your following statements were way off the mark:

Let's not get into a contest about that here, because then I'll pull the plug on this thread. Come to think of it, I'll probably pull the plug anyway - this thread is not helpful to people who want to build MechMates.

This thread now closed and archived.

Gerald D
 

Gerald, I think you misunderstand,#44 response was a answer to repeated questions above, regarding modifications in table design as to the benefit of panel processing as it applied to my shop specifically.All I conveyed were the questions that I personally faced that led me down this path.
As I pm you 2 weeks ago, I'm neither here to sell or steal,I'm merely giving back to interested parties any information that might be helpful in there build jobs.Its clearly understood that this is your website.Many of the members helped build this site,by adding resourced information,to them is also owed a debt of gratitude.The area of the forum (Anything not directly connected to constructing mechmate cnc)was the area you put me in.If you genuinely feel that I am harming this forum let a group of my piers judge me.I ask that until which time ,that you would reinstate the thread Red headed step child,that I might offer assistance to someone else who has helped me.

Thread re-opened for a while.

The uniqueness of MechMate lies in its gantry, y-car and z-axis designs. This website was created because of people wanting to copy what I had built for myself. The downloadable plans from this site focus 99% on the mechanics of the machine and replicates something that I had built and tested for myself. The forum is intended as a tool (maybe "handbook"?) of conveying the gaps in the plans to someone who wants to get my mechanical design to a fully running condition.

The absolute emphasis of the design embodied in the plans is low-cost, low-skilled DIY build, with common tools, in most countries, with easily available materials & components, producing acceptable production cut quality for wood-based boards. Every "improvement" that is suggested/tried by builders is simply checked against the aforementioned criteria before it is considered for adding to the plans. The plans have remained mostly unchanged.

Ron, your build did not use any significant part of the MechMate mechanical design. You did use this forum to build your control system, but that doesn't give you rights to claim that you built a "MechMate". You are actually knocking the basic MechMate design and saying that it wasn't good enough for you. You are entitled to your opinion, but please find another place to say that. It doesn't matter what your peers may think - it is entirely my personal decision whether I am going to allow this forum to become another CNCzone, or whether I am going to tighten up on what goes in here.

I checked through this whole thread again and I find very little that is going to help other standard MechMate builders.

You may argue that this guy Experimental hybrid MechMate – Tehran, Iran is also not building a true MechMate, but read through his thread and see his tips on grinding rails, drilling/tapping holes and general approach to work in a country where tools/materials are limited.

I'm always impressed with the number of folks, many from less industrialized areas than the US where any tech is readily available, who are able to pull off the construction of one of these fabulous machines. It also seems that once the machine is built that they tend to actually use it to their economic benefit. I'll go out on a limb here and say there are basically two styles of cnc builders....those who build for the joy of it and those who see it as a means to an end. Nothing wrong with either approach, but the fact that the end product result of the easily sourced parts + some elbow grease is so much greater than the cost indicates truly elegant design to me. Anyone with enough money can buy linear guides.

I'm guilty to a certain extent of gearheadedness, tinkering and "improvement." However, having a machine that takes up half the shop forced me to turn my thoughts to potential products that would leverage the production abilities of the device. Based on past experiences, and qualified by the difficulty and repetition of hand production, I believe I have identified just such an item. I fully expect to sell >$100K , easily, in the coming year at an embarrassingly good profit margin as a very much part time business. The item is precise, very time consuming to build with non cnc equipment, and high value in relation to materials consumed. There is absolutely nothing limiting in the design of the Mech, it will cut as quickly as I can load various parts stations along the 20' table and accuracy is far from being an issue.

Hats off to the creator of the "Red Headed Step Child", it's a fine looking piece of equipment. While not nearly as snazzy looking in comparison, I'll define the value of my Mech by what it can do for me financially. I recognize that in the Man and Machine relationship that I am the weak link. When I can program as efficiently as the machine can cut I'll start looking at improving the machine. Don't see that happening anytime soon.

Preemptive apologies to anyone I've offended.

Chuck

Thursday 17 November: Thread finally closed and archived - GD