Hi All,
I'm looking for advice purchasing a factory made cnc.
Any comments on the most recent Shopbot?
I'm a one man gang, cutting inlays and building guitars in a home shop.A friend in San Diego has an older Shopbot he uses for building instruments and said the newest version is much better.
comments?

Direction?

You can see what I cut by hand @ www.bordeauxinlay.com

thanks for the help.

not sure about the retail units just wanted to say nice work and welcome aboard

Dude, Nice inlay work on your site.

I did my first cnc inlay a few weeks back. I hear nothing bad about Shopbot most owners seem pretty happy. But you might want to check out http://ww.K2CNC.com, IMO you'll get a better quality machine for about the same or less money and you'll not be stuck with proprietary software and controls.

Thanks for the kind words!

I've been directed towards the techno-isel products to achieve the precision my craft demands.
It's quite an investment for a novice to CNC.
Can anyone offer alternatives with similar specs / components?
They also suggested Enroute as the software of choice for my 2D tool paths.

Techno-isel makes nice stuff but.... $$$$$

Honestly, Inlay is pretty light duty work for a Router. I did the inlays posted here on a homeade machine and the inlays and pockets are a perfect fit, read that as zero gap/no slop. My machine is no where near the build quality of A K2CNC, and it was not really taxing the machine at all. The K2CNC machines can have ball-screws and have excellent linear bearings and rigid frames, with Gecko and Servo options added... that'd be more than enough. And save you a TON.

While Enroute is probably a nice program. You can get the precision you need with just about any CAD package (I like Rhino3D) and for 2D Toolpaths SheetCAM can do the work you need. Enroute is +$2K.... alone. SheetCAM is just over $100. Did they tell you that you should buy ArtCAM too?

Are you looking to do complete instruments? or just inlay? I just want to make sure that you are not buying more than you need to. Do some more investigating before you commit.

Nathan,

Thanks for the reply.
Look at my web site at www.bordeauxinlay.com to see some of my hand work.
i intend to use the machine for producing inlays and fingerboards, and eventually various guitar parts, including necks.
I have already turned down several orders for +500 logos because i did not have a cnc.
I want to assure accurracy and repeatability, since this is a full time venture,( or adventure)!

If your talking that kind of volume then you may be better off with a higher end machine. But you really need to do some research on the software, imo. Not necessarily because Enroute is so expensive, but because you need to make sure it will work for you. I'm not familiar with Enroute, but high-end software does have it's place. You just have to be very thorough in your research of it.

The sales reps reasoning for that particular software was the ability to do 2D toolpaths easily, since I explained I wanted, of course, a simple introduction to getting up and running.
As I stated early in this post, I'm a newbie!
Please continue to give me alternatives; I'll take the plunge,(no pun intended),on the machine cost if it means not having enough precision /capabilities a year from now.

Will you be drawing your inlays in Enroute? Or drawing them somewhere else and importing them. If your drawing them somewhere else and importing, then I don't know if Enroute offers any features to make it worth the price. If you'll be drawing your inlays in Enroute, you should make sure you can do it easily and quickly.

Hi Gerry,

According to the software info for Enroute, It offers a direct path between any sign layout program, including CASmate, Autocad,etc...

The sales rep said it would make it very easy to get started in cnc.

Advice? Comparable products?

What I'm trying to say is that if you're not drawing with Enroute, you can use something like sheetcam to create toolpaths for $150, vs $2K. What are you going to draw your inlays with? I don't want to try to steer you one way or another, just trying to help you to understand whats available. It seems to me like you really don't have a good understanding of what you're getting in to.

Basically, you're going to need to draw your inlays. Then you'll create pockets for the inlays, and cut out the actual inlays. Then the drawing is converted to g-code. Whether the conversion is handled by sheetcam, or enroute, the results will be similar. From looking at the website for Enroute, I don't see anything that it offers specific to inlays, and if all you'll be doing is inlays, then you won't use most of its features.

Download the demo of Sheetcam, and play around with it and see if it will work for you. You need to try stuff out. Just try to make sure you know what you're buying.

Gerry,
I'll do that.
Do I understand correctly that I can scan line art and then move it to a program to create a tool path?

Gerry,
I'll do that.
Do I understand correctly that I can scan line art and then move it to a program to create a tool path?


That's not exactly a good idea... Raster to Vector programs are functional for some things but not acceptable for most especially intricate inlay. If you have hand drawn stuff you'll want to redraw by hand with a CAD program (Or Even something like Corel Draw) You don't want to scan and hope for the best with any software. It just won't work out. NOTHING to date has been acceptable (Even Autodesk's new Raster Design won't cut the mustard and it's the best of the bunch) Don't believe me, spend your money and see how much time you waste looking for that bit of automation that you were sold on but can't locate.

Like Gerry stated, You'll have to Draw (Vector based art only), Take it to your CAM software, Generate offsets for contours and Pockets, transfer to the CNC Control, Run the program. No matter how much money you spend the process will essentially be the same. .03125" is .03125" regardless wether $2000 software or $150 SheetCAM produces it. It's Math, computers are good at that. :) If the algorithms are correct the results will be unmeasureablly similar at the cut part.

Scan and cut is a pipe dream... It works acceptably well for decorative sign work and that's about it.

What might work pretty well for you, is to scan in the artwork, load it into Autocad, and trace it using splines. Save it as a version 12 .dxf, then close it and reopen it. It will be converted to polylines, which sheetcam or my macro can turn into g-code.
I like to use splines because you don't need to choose too many points when doing the tracing.

Forgot to add, that like Nathan said, I've never seen a raster to vector conversion that I'd want to run on a machine. And I've seen quite a few in the last 10 years.

What might work pretty well for you, is to scan in the artwork, load it into Autocad, and trace it using splines. Save it as a version 12 .dxf, then close it and reopen it. It will be converted to polylines, which sheetcam or my macro can turn into g-code.
I like to use splines because you don't need to choose too many points when doing the tracing.


Exactly the way the pros do it. You get better art, you are able to optimize for the small cutters, Your offsets for your contours and pockets will turn out as expected. (You have to have a pocket a couple of thousandths bigger than the inlay or you end up with a press fit and there is no room for glue. and you'll crack the shell trying to get it in.) Splines = Smoother curves, fewer points, More arcs in the Gcode, smaller gcode, smoother cuts.

You'll have to cut many bad to mediocre pieces before you get the hang of it. Enroute is not going to save you much at all. And even on a big run of logos out of Abalam sheet, you can nest that stuf by hand in a few minutes. Cause your sheet goods are very small.

"Scan and cut is a pipe dream... It works acceptably well for decorative sign work and that's about it."
__________________
Nathan

So would lettering, such as in the attachment, possible, like decorative sign work? (Scan to cut?)
Most repetitive inlay work involves logos and / or lettering.(names, initials, signatures).
Of course I would like to do other designs, but the lettering would be a viable starting point if I could end up with a useable product right out of the gate.

"What might work pretty well for you, is to scan in the artwork, load it into Autocad, and trace it using splines. Save it as a version 12 .dxf, then close it and reopen it. It will be converted to polylines, which sheetcam or my macro can turn into g-code.
I like to use splines because you don't need to choose too many points when doing the tracing."
__________________
Gerry

Would autocad lt work? I have a version of it on my shop pc.

My macro won't run in LT, but you should be able to get the .dxf for sheetcam.

As for scanning text, no, it probably won't work very well. If you saw what we're talking about, you'd understand. Another option that a lot of plasma guys use, would be to do your text in something like Coreldraw, and export .dxf from that. Then setup your offsets in Autocad. You can get an older version of Coreldraw for cheap.

With the number of fonts available for free or almost free. There's no need to scan.

For example on the Woodworker's Shop guitar that I did. You see the stinking logo that I was provided. It is such a low resolution that tracing software is just completely useless. In the second image here is the completely redrawn image that I did by hand in Rhino by placing the provided image as a background image and then retracing using the fonts and drawing tools in the program. Took me all of about 15 minutes. (I'm schooled in graphic design and have been using drawing packages for the last 15 years so I'm a little quicker than some people)but still it's almost always better to Draw than to clean up a converted image. Plus you know you are getting the best curves for your CAM software.

Nice... and clean!

Not bad for a <$500 homemade CNC machine using a RotoZip as a spindle.

Is it your first venture into building a machine?

Did you buy a kit? Plans?

No it's my 3rd machine... I used the experience from the first two to be able to design and build this one to decent tolerances. (I'm not recommending that you build from scratch cause that's a whole nuther thing to obesess with.) I'm not trying to make money with my machine. So being clever with design and materials and keeping it inexpensive was my priority. If I had a product to move I would have invested and bought at least a "ready for motors" all metal construction machine.