duplicating existing physical item/pattern

[memilanuk]

Hello,

I'm pretty new to all this CNC stuff, so be gentle w/ me, OK? Hopefully I have this in the right sub-forum.

I'm very intrigued by the various DIY CNC routers such as the JGRO and others on the board here, and would like to build one (gotta get my shop straightened out... just moved and a lot of stuff is still in need of a home, i.e. shelves, cabinets, first.) as time allows. The other thing that has captured my interest is some sort of router pantograph, such as the Copy Carver.

What really has my interest of maybe combining the two some how. I.e. some way of having a stylus or something similar take an existing complex non-flat sided shape, put it into some sort of CAD program (so it could be modified/updated/improved), and then take that info to a CAM program and CNC machine to duplicate it.

I imagine things very much like this exist in the commercial/industrial world. And probably cost way more than my car, possibly more than my house! Anybody ever fooled around w/ something like this on a hobby/DIY level?

TIA,

Monte

[ger21]

You can buy a probe for about $300. place the part on your CNC, and the software will probe (trace) it for you and create a point cloud, which is a flie with a list of all the points that were probed. You can use the point cloud to create a 3D CAD model. You can get the probe at www.cadcamcadcam.com

[CJL5585]

Hello,

I'm pretty new to all this CNC stuff, so be gentle w/ me, OK? Hopefully I have this in the right sub-forum.

I'm very intrigued by the various DIY CNC routers such as the JGRO and others on the board here, and would like to build one (gotta get my shop straightened out... just moved and a lot of stuff is still in need of a home, i.e. shelves, cabinets, first.) as time allows. The other thing that has captured my interest is some sort of router pantograph, such as the Copy Carver.

What really has my interest of maybe combining the two some how. I.e. some way of having a stylus or something similar take an existing complex non-flat sided shape, put it into some sort of CAD program (so it could be modified/updated/improved), and then take that info to a CAM program and CNC machine to duplicate it.

I imagine things very much like this exist in the commercial/industrial world. And probably cost way more than my car, possibly more than my house! Anybody ever fooled around w/ something like this on a hobby/DIY level?

TIA,

Monte

Does this resemble what you are looking for?

Manual carving machine custom built for making Flintlock Rifles.

Jerry

[memilanuk]

Gerry,

Thanks for the link; I'll take a look at it and see. This is a 'down the road a bit' project anyway, just wanted to know if it was feasible or if I was dreamin' a little too crazy

Jerry,

Very probably it does, but for some reason my settings got b0rked to where I can't see any pictures that people attach as thumbails. I got it 'fixed to where I can at least see the file names now, but something weird happened when I actually registered on this site to where I can't see the attached thumbnails inline w/ the post, either from work or from home. Weird. Anyways, that looks quite a bit like what I want to do w/ the Copy Carver system.

Thanks,

Monte