Quick decision to buy

[scottcox]

Mitch, Mitch, Mitch,

You had me worried with #3. :-)

Zach,

I chose to buy ShopBot because of this forum and the indexer and have never, ever regretted it. The indexer is an incredible tool capable of many things that you just can't do on a 3 axis machine.

Go for it! I did and haven't looked back. Now I'm making some rather cool "round" stuff as well.

[myxpykalix]

And my original indexer "mentor" was Scott Cox. Without his help and table design I would not have been able to do some of the things i wanted to do, So Zach, in the end the tool you will get the most use out of is the one you will pay the least for, which is this forum.

20 well informed and knowlegable responses in 24 hours (except from, well you know who...)lol
is more then you would get from any other mfg's forum, if they even have one.

[hh_woodworking]

Zach,
It is great that an other School will be getting a Shop Bot. I opted for the 48x48 prt when we got ours the biggest reason was not wanting to give up the extra floor space. Yes there has been a few times that the 8' table would have been nice but over all I am not sorry that I did not get the large table. When it is necessary it just takes a little more figuring to make it work out. Most of the student projects or are less than 4'x4'.

We are mounting are indexer on the y axis at the front of the table. ( this will probability not be completed until summer).

We use a 1" bit to surface the table with good results and low cost just takes a longer to complete.

We run a PC router almost exclusively at 10,000 rpm. noise is acceptable but we do have a High ceiling 14'. Cost is a lot less. We have been running this router 3 years on same brushes and bearings. Do to running it at 10,000.(Yes we use it a lot some weeks we run a funding raising project that will keep it running 7hours / day for 3-4 weeks strait if necessary) Before when we running it a high rpm we replaced the brushes every 3 months.
If you opt for the PC DO GET THE COLLET System from precisebits. Then you can use 1/8 bits which are less expensive to buy, It seam that we use many more small bits than the bigger ones.

Hold down system: Jigs fixtures and clamps and cam locks that we make. Good experience for them to make Jigs and Fixtures. We have a vacuum system but it was never installed. I think that if we do put in place it will increase the noise level a lot . I am thinking of possibly using vacuum pod system at times. We also do a lot of just plain screwing things down to the table.

If I can be of help please contact me

Ed Harrall
Southwest High School
Washburn Mo

[mccoy178]

Congrats on the funding! I would also recommend contacting Ed if you have any questions. I have both a prt120 alpha at my school and a prt95 standard at another high school here in Central Ohio. One has a 5hp spindle and the other has a porter cable router. Email me if you would like to chat!