New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter - Page 3


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Thread: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

  1. #41
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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Quote Originally Posted by cyclotron View Post
    here is mine finally working! You were a big inspiration Pyro!

    Nice job, it looks very solid. I've redesigned my tool head to include a rotary cutter now too. Mostly I'm doing cutting and heat sealing of thin films. I'm about to redo the long axis rail system so that it uses Chinese SBR-20 linear slides.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    After putting up with Mach3s quirky handling of A axis rotation for a few years, I finally decided to add a sliding ring type electrical contact for the four electrical lines that run to my heat sealing wheel. I've had too many jobs get screwed up from the cord wrapping around and strangling itself, and there was also wear on the insulation due to cord movement around tie points. So with a 3D printer and some copper sheeting I was able to make this home brew 4 conductor sliding ring setup and it works great! Now I can turn off the 360 roll over option on Mach and always get the shortest movement to get to the desired angle, and there is no wear on any of the wires. My 120 volt line was just about worn through and ready to short too, I made this change just in time!



    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    way cool... have been planning on doing this for a while now, and hadn't yet found any DIY examples. Currently doing CNC cutting with a drag knife on our 4'x4' cnc router as proof of concept... but the real ticket will be integrating the multi-tool head on a 6' wide machine (just like you've done).
    the next critical ideas I have (which I haven't seen here) is setting it up for laser cutting... I'm curios if a 1/8" sheet of Teflon glued over the MDF table surface will survive blade cutting and the heat from the laser? Has anyone tried this???
    hoping to resolve the laser questions in the next couple months, I'm resolving CAD to G code integration currently, and hope to start building it in July



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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Quote Originally Posted by catsh16 View Post
    way cool... have been planning on doing this for a while now, and hadn't yet found any DIY examples. Currently doing CNC cutting with a drag knife on our 4'x4' cnc router as proof of concept... but the real ticket will be integrating the multi-tool head on a 6' wide machine (just like you've done).
    the next critical ideas I have (which I haven't seen here) is setting it up for laser cutting... I'm curios if a 1/8" sheet of Teflon glued over the MDF table surface will survive blade cutting and the heat from the laser? Has anyone tried this???
    hoping to resolve the laser questions in the next couple months, I'm resolving CAD to G code integration currently, and hope to start building it in July
    I've never seen a laser cutter work on anything but a metal grate as the backing. I think it will just melt any kind of plastic you try to use under the fabric. Maybe you could find some kind of steel drain cover to use, then you would be able to use magnets to pin the fabric in place. The grates could just be tiled together to cover the space you needed.

    Even with drag knife an rotary cutter I haven't found the ideal backing surface yet. I know HDPE and some other plastic sheeting used in the industry can be found online, but the freight shipping cost on those is 10 times the cost of the material itself so it is pretty prohibitive for just a few sheets. I tried using the fiberglass shower stall sheeting found in home improvement stores, but it still scores up pretty bad and the rotary wheel will stop cutting after just a few passes over the same path. Once the trench is there, the wheel just pushes the material down into the slot without cutting it. Glass would be the ideal surface, but if my pneumatic tool head slammed down on that it would crack it. I'd need a stepper powered Z axis for that, which no fabric cutter I've ever seen uses. They all seem to use pneumatic for speed.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    cutting surface: Teflon (PTFE) is one of the must durable surfaces available. it is also obviously very high temp (~800deg F or C... I forget) vs. ~450 for nylon fabric (our working material)... so it 'should' work
    I saw you specified 1/16" holes on 3" spacing - does that really hold material down OK... probably for big stuff but not the small stuff? for my test table I drilled 1/8" holes on 1/2" spacing... but also expect to cut lots of parts with small detail <2"... pretty happy with it, but all holes need to be covered to hold the fabric down.

    also am wondering if you programmed the machine to raise and lower different tools within a single program, or if you manually switch between different heads and run seperate G-code programs.



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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Instead of HDPE, try your local plastic fabricator or retailer and ask for arena or puck board. Cheapest PE available...

    Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk

    In case anyone is wondering, I'm the twin of the other gfacer on cnczone...


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Quote Originally Posted by catsh16 View Post
    cutting surface: Teflon (PTFE) is one of the must durable surfaces available. it is also obviously very high temp (~800deg F or C... I forget) vs. ~450 for nylon fabric (our working material)... so it 'should' work
    I saw you specified 1/16" holes on 3" spacing - does that really hold material down OK... probably for big stuff but not the small stuff? for my test table I drilled 1/8" holes on 1/2" spacing... but also expect to cut lots of parts with small detail <2"... pretty happy with it, but all holes need to be covered to hold the fabric down.

    also am wondering if you programmed the machine to raise and lower different tools within a single program, or if you manually switch between different heads and run seperate G-code programs.
    The 3" spacing works great for me, but I'm typically cutting large pieces from full sheets that cover all the holes. The more open holes you have, the less suction you get from the covered holes. Usually the practice is to try and cover the unused holes when cutting something small to avoid this problem. If you cut smaller items you might have to decrease the spacing between holes too. I would think 1/8" holes would be too large-- you will suck the fabric down into them and then the blade won't cut those spots and you'd have to go back and manually clip them. with a laser this wouldn't be an issue though.

    I have three pistons on my tool head and use macros within Mach to switch between them on the fly within the same program. The macros already existed for use in mill operations such as misting, spindle on/off, spindle direction etc. which are the M3/M4, M8/M9 and M7/M9 combinations (down/up). Using these allows you to manually toggle from the Mach screen too.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Quote Originally Posted by gfacer2 View Post
    Instead of HDPE, try your local plastic fabricator or retailer and ask for arena or puck board. Cheapest PE available...

    Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk
    I'm guessing this is that fake ice stuff for ice skating on? I bet that would work good since it holds up to skate blades. Not sure if I even have a local plastic fabricator though.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    No fake ice is a fortune. Think more like plastic bucket material in a sheet.

    Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk

    In case anyone is wondering, I'm the twin of the other gfacer on cnczone...


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    I saw were you had once looked at a ultrasonic attachment for your machine. Now that the price on the hand held units has come down may have some interest.See image
    New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter-glam-head-jpg



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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    I recognize the Carlson Design machine. So that is an ultrasonic welder head on there? I always thought ultrasonic required a metal surface on the other side of the ultrasonic head in order to work right. I never could get a straight answer on how to use an ultrasonic head on a CNC machine from the ultrasonic companies though. Is the machine in the picture yours? I'm curious how this setup works.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Quote Originally Posted by gfacer2 View Post
    No fake ice is a fortune. Think more like plastic bucket material in a sheet.

    Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk
    I did recently get some 4x8 polyethylene mats that work ok. cutting-mats.net sells a 3/16" version rolled up so that it fits in a box that can be delivered by common carrier, thus avoiding the high cost of freight shipping: Rhino Large Self Healing Cutting Mats (No Grid)

    I would not call these self healing though, the cuts are visible and remain visible. I get about 99% success on each job, but there are always a couple of strands left uncut and I believe these are caused by ridges left in the mat from previous cuts. I'm going to try the green self healing mats next, even though they are twice as expensive. I've built a vacuum based pick and place system that picks up the sheets after all the cutting is done and stacks them into piles, and this requires 100% success rate on the cutting since all it takes is a single strand left uncut to really create a mess on the stacking stage.

    Cutting on glass proved to be completely unusable. It dulls the blade so fast that the success rate quickly drops to a very poor level and you spend a lot of time cutting the uncut strands.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    I was reading their blog and thought of this thread. They are using metal sheets for their surface Carlson Design – Decorator Industries: Ultra-Sonic Success. It looks to be held similar to a router but with rollers to allow for rotation.


    Have you ever used a rolling pizza wheel for your fabric cutting? How would you align the cutting wheel?



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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Someone had asked about a cutting head.


    New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter-head-tool-png



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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    I do use a rolling cutter quite often, which I made using a 3D printed blade holder for 28mm blades. To keep the blade tangent to the cut, I either use custom software to add angle values to the A axis on G1 and G0 commands or I use the tangential mode in Mach for following curves.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    It looks like their ultrasonic tool head can only do cutting and not sealing. I would think it should be possible to do sealing using a similar type of system though. I could not find the cutter they are using on the JTE Machine site though. All I could find were the very large RF welders that weld long, straight segments in increments.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Forgot to post the following video with last post. Shows a green sensor on the tool head stepper motor which I believe might be for homing. Another thing I like about this setup is the use of 8020 for linear rails.





    Nice thing about being on vacation and the wife is working is it gives me time to do some background research. I do have an old old Carlson Plotter but need to look at possible upgrades for the future.



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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    The sensor looks like a Hall Effect sensor for homing. That's something I need to add to mine, as currently I just visually align it and sometimes if I don't get it exactly right it can result in bad cuts or even damage the cutting mat.

    I wonder why they have a tension spring off on the side, given that they are using double action cylinders and don't need one? It doesn't even look like it is providing much pull and is also undersized for the span.

    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    Here is a video of the vacuum based pick-and-place fixture I added to my machine. I'm cutting carbon fiber sheets that will be laminated together and the machine will build the stacks to the desired number of layers and then move onto the next stack. The entire vacuum fixture was designed in SolidWorks and then 3D printed. The suction head is interchangeable for doing larger size sheets. Large sheets have to be picked up at the corners rather than from the middle like these smaller sheets.




    "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."


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    Default Re: New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter

    The entire cutting head seams to be oversized so the spring may in some way helped with the weight or to keep from binding. I've had my cylinder bind when it is not entirely vertical. I would have lighten up the platform with a smaller rail (something like attached photo), cylinders and bracket.


    New Machine Build- 16' x 5.5' Fabric Cutter/Plotter-prod_gst_low_profile_mini_rail_lpm-jpg



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