DIY CNC QUILTING MACHINE

[khalid]

CJ Wrote: ""All joking aside, my spouse would probally love a quilter but she would want me to operate it and then that is where i would have to draw the line.""

You are 100 percent right CJ.. Initially you will have to train her on software and Quilter operation... as far as vector drawings are concerned , at that time i would have 1000's of Quilting designs..I will lend you;)
I myself run from teaching;) But in the long run, you will see some beautiful and creative stuff in your house...May be this stuff sell more than the price you get from machining a single job on your shopbot;)

[khalid]

Daniel Powell


Thanks for your help... Currently, I have all mechanical and electronics stuff on hand for experimentation.... Just i need to involve you in brainstorming to come up the solutions for PC based cruise controlling of sewing machine..... I assure you,We are not far off from the solution ..... Keep in mind that, the whole thing may take some time...

I will make the machine first and when i satisfied of its operation, then i will make as built drawings (included all modifications)... R&D involves money and time and both are scarce here..Lets cross the fingers

[mikeacg]

Khalid,

I have 4 different commercial embroidery machines here. Let me know if you need any pictures of anything. There is also a free downloadable digitizing program on the web - I'll find you the address. It's not as easy to use as the commercial stuff but you should be able to handle it (the manual is downloadable as well).

Mike

[mikeacg]

Free embroidery digitizing software:

http://www.thredworks.com

They also have tutorials online.

[khalid]

Michael
Awesome software... Thanks for information.... Currently we intend to make this machine to function as a quilter... so at the quilting stage this software is not required... I intend to keep your CAD and CAM software for handling this type of Quilting work....and I hope after accomplishing this goal, we will move it one step forward as an embroidary machine.. It will not that smart as commercial machines you have but it will be a low-cost hobbiest solution...
We just stick into making some solution to computerized control the needle movement of ordinary machines cheaply available in market..once we succeeded doing this then we can do anykinda embroidary stuff

[larryl]

Khalid, I am working on a quilter myself. I am not using the shopbot equipment though. My equipment is two steppers from Stepperboard, and a dual axis controller from Peter Norberg Consulting. I have built the system for my wife's quilting machine which consists of a plastic mount on the machine platform which holds the X axis motor for linear motion along the table, and another on the side of the carriage which controls the lateral motion of the sewing machine. The sewing machine is equipped with a cruise control and a Husqvarna Viking Mega-quilter sewing machine. The cruise control ensures that the stitch length remains the same no matter what the speed of the motors is. As far as the hardware is concerned, everything works as designed, however, the real problem is interfacing the controllr with software. The Norberg controller is very proprietary and only uses software built from vbasic, .net, c++, etc. I am not a programmer in those languages so I am having difficulty finding software that would be sufficient to modify. The problem is the language that the controller uses, which is proprietary to Norberg. Any suggestions would be helpful. Great project, a lot of fun putting it together.

[eric_schumacher]

People interested in this topic should reference the CompuQuilter solution. There are only a few products in this space and I think there is room for a better and lower priced solution.

http://www.compuquilter.com/

These guys want 15k for just the steppers, computer and software to drive a 15k long arm quilter. I'd imagine that shopbot could do the same for half with more quality.

Popular long arm machines for use with CompuQuilter are:

http://www.kenquilt.com

http://www.apqs.com/

I've seen the Ken Quilt machines and they have nice rails ;)

[larryl]

Eric,

While CompuQuilter.com is a nice site to look at, the thought of pay $15K for the package just doesn't appeal to my sense of finances. I mounted the motors on the table and the carriage the other day and did some tests using a laptop computer that proved that the controller and the motors and mounts are a viable design. Now I am working on the software control using vb.net. The controller comes with the necessary classes for vb6, however they are not fully compatible with vb.net, and require some modification to make them work.

[eric_schumacher]

Larry, that's why I said 'reference' the solution. In other words if you are looking to build something like it you should take a look at it. I really do mean you should go see it at a show. It's cool, but not the best thing in the world. It would give you some ideas.

You can interop with vb6 com with vb.net so you should not have to mod your classes. Is it just a dll?

[larryl]

Eric, I decided to go with another controller board that is Mach3 capable. It also has estop capability and multi-axis ability for future expansion. No the file is not a dll, it is a true class file. That is one of the reasons I decided to go with Mach3. The other reason is the ease of modification of the software. I have completion to the point of initial on table testing now. When I have an acceptable proof of concept, I will publish it in this blog.