Hmmmm.....maybe just use a stationary hot point sitting vertically and facing upwards. Above the point use one of those robot arms to move the foam block around the stationary tip. The robot arm would only need 3 axis of movement, just like a gantry router...although 4 axis would be better.....
.....or perhaps, why not just make a gantry router with the hot point sitting in a fixed position (Or moving) on the bottom pointing up, Im sure it would be easy to make some sort of 'scraper' or 'scraping sleeve' mechanism that could move up and down quickly on the hot point to scrape it clean, perhaps every few seconds. Or the scraper could be two soft rubber squares mounted either side of the hot tip a few cm from it, every few seconds the squares move in and squeeze the tip then scrape downwards and go out back to the start position.
Of course rubber melts so a good rubber or other material choice would have to be made for the 'scrapers'.....
Soldering iron tips are interchangable, so you could change the size and shape just like router bits depending upon what you need to achieve. You could even grind your own tips!
.....any thoughts ???  |