4th Axis Shopbot...

[9r2a5m70]

Hi, I'm not sure what's been posted and not but I didn't see anything here directly relating to my post. We have a Shopbot PRT 4x8 and want to put a full rotary axis going the longest direction of the table. We want to extend the Z axis and get around 20 inches of travel out of it. As well as redo the rails and of course beef up the frame like crazy. This is going to be for EPS and Light wt Urethane foams only. I want to have the Rotary axis and x,y,z move at the same time. We are currently using Rhino w/ RhinoCAM Pro which supports this type of tool pathing. My question is does anyone have any experience with the shopbot running 4 axis at the same time. RhinoCAM does support 4 Axis Indexing but I would love to not use it that way.
Also what kind of work is it to add the rotary axis, I know that shopbot does sell a small version to go the along the short side. And the board of course supports one more axis. I'm just fuzzy on the details. Any help is appreciated,

-Ryan Mull

[myxpykalix]

Here is a picture of my table with the indexer mounted in the X axis. It is on a 2006 PRT Alpha 120x60 I have the ability to have a full sheet of plywood on the table for x,y,z work then run the indexer.

You don't say what year unit you have. The newer models I don't believe will allow you to make the table like i have mine. I have seen some tables made specifically for foam work that have lower flat struts like you see illustrated by the red lines in the second picture with the indexer mounted in the center.
Then when they wanted to do flat work they have a "torsion box" type table they put on it to raise the table height.

With my Z and a averave length bit I can reach about an inch or 2 above the bottom strut on the right you see.

Regarding running all four axis at one time, it basically already does this. However your Y axis is substituted for the B axis rotation. Depending on what program you use to create the toolpath for whatever it is you are making it is figured in by the program so it is nothing you have to do. If that makes sense.

[jsooter]

What kind of work are you wanting to do with EPS? Does it machine?

[9r2a5m70]

Excellent Jack, thank you. I like the setup you have going there. The shopbot we bought used about a year and a half ago. It just had the Motherboard replaced. But I believe the shopbot itself is between 4 and 6 years old. The top gantry you have for the Y, and the X rails look just like the ones on our machine. Nice modified Z from what I can see there though! What you have there is definitely the direction we are wanting to go. I'm sure it will be a slow process to get it all setup and done. But I can't wait to get all my information together to get started on this project.

[9r2a5m70]

What kind of work are you wanting to do with EPS? Does it machine?

Jason, we are a theming company and do retail displays and props amongst many other things from Aerospace to building simple scultpures for artists. The main reason I want to have a 4th axis added is we do work for disney, universal, and legoland. We have had jobs were we get the actual 3D model from a movie and have to either have it printed into a maquette or print out a bunch of pictures and hand sculpt it. Some of the companies are now wanting Milled items instead. So we would like to get the shopbot setup as a 4 axis so we can mill say a person and then have our sculptor go through and do the final details. We also do molds and to have a 4 axis to make tooling would be extremely useful in some of our work. If you want to check out our website and see some of our work to get a clearer picture of the things we do, here it is:

www.storylandstudios.com

Thanks, Ryan

[myxpykalix]

Ryan,
I didn't look at everything but what i saw was impressive. Love the incredible hulks. Making one would have been an interesting project but 240 of them? WOW...very cool. I'm going to have to go back and look some more, very impressive.

I will try to find a few more pictures of my table. But if you look at what i posted it is a shopbot only from the rails up. From the rails down it is a custom table.
What I could see you doing was to take and make a table like mine except the red line in the pic, make your struts flat all the way across and mount your indexer in the center of the Y axis to give you maximum diameter carving ability.

[9r2a5m70]

Ryan,
I didn't look at everything but what i saw was impressive. Love the incredible hulks. Making one would have been an interesting project but 240 of them? WOW...very cool. I'm going to have to go back and look some more, very impressive.

I will try to find a few more pictures of my table. But if you look at what i posted it is a shopbot only from the rails up. From the rails down it is a custom table.
What I could see you doing was to take and make a table like mine except the red line in the pic, make your struts flat all the way across and mount your indexer in the center of the Y axis to give you maximum diameter carving ability.

Excellent I would love to see a few more pictures if you have them. One other question I was just thinking about, is the motor for the indexer. I'm guessing it would be easiest to use the same motor and controller as the other 4 already on the shopbot. Which looks to be the same one you have on the indexer in your photo's. But since there is going to be so much more weight I'm thinking to have 2 hubs (one at each end with good bearings, or bearingless perhaps) and have a gear ratio setup to the motor. Do you think this is something that would be necessary, or will the weight not affect it that much. It probably would range from 30lb.s up to 300 or so depending on the type of foam used. I was thinking of setting it up so I can use a pipe to run through a block if I was going to use the full 8' length. Again I'm not sure if this is overkill or not.
Thanks for all your help!
-Ryan

[navigator7]

Awesome Ryan!

I'd sure love to get my hands on the X,Y,Z coordinates for Elastagirl.

Are you the 'Ryan' that was with Heavy Industries or maybe Heavy World?

[myxpykalix]

Here are a few more pictures. The indexer motor is different then the other stepper motors. You can see the model # in the pic, as for the terchnical specs ask shopbot or someone else here i'm no technical expert.

I can tell you i have had a 12" diameter, 8'ft long column on and carved it with no issues, not sure of the weight.

You can see in the other pics the way the table was made and i took one pic into my paint program and made what i think you might be thinking about in terms of your table.

Also you could make a torsion box table top to cover the indexer when not in use.

[myxpykalix]

few more pix

[9r2a5m70]

Awesome Ryan!

I'd sure love to get my hands on the X,Y,Z coordinates for Elastagirl.

Are you the 'Ryan' that was with Heavy Industries or maybe Heavy World?

Hi, yeah I bet you would : ). The files we got on those were setup on a security timer of sorts. Once the job was done the files became invalid. Although I'm sure there is a way around that but we just deleted them. No I'm not the same Ryan. I've talked with him before at Heavy Industries. We do work for them sometimes.

[9r2a5m70]

Here are a few more pictures. The indexer motor is different then the other stepper motors. You can see the model # in the pic, as for the terchnical specs ask shopbot or someone else here i'm no technical expert.

I can tell you i have had a 12" diameter, 8'ft long column on and carved it with no issues, not sure of the weight.

You can see in the other pics the way the table was made and i took one pic into my paint program and made what i think you might be thinking about in terms of your table.

Also you could make a torsion box table top to cover the indexer when not in use.

Awesome, Thank you for the additional pictures. 12" dia @ 8' is a decent piece of wood. Depending on the type of wood that can get up there in weight. That makes me more confident I can probably just hook it up directly to the hub then. Looks like I'm going to have to get into Rhino and draw up the table.

[navigator7]

Hi, yeah I bet you would : ). The files we got on those were setup on a security timer of sorts. Once the job was done the files became invalid. Although I'm sure there is a way around that but we just deleted them. No I'm not the same Ryan. I've talked with him before at Heavy Industries. We do work for them sometimes.

LOL...I was kidding about getting the 3D files of Elastagirl. I've had a crush on Elastagirl since we first met! Just a high tech wolf call on my part. I lost her to some boring life insurance salesman. ;-(

I do have a curiosity question?
I see you are doing larger than life size models.
Does the cost of the fourth axis really give you the return in orders and customer satisfaction?
In as much as you can divide your model up into layers and machine the positive side draft and glue the layers together then you are left with the "Hand Work" which is where the artists excel.

Or...are you headed to architectural props?

I've had a real talented gal named Zoe Cattel of BigBuzzDesign.com bid on some work here locally. She told me she finds it way faster to simply sculpt. I tend to agree with her until it comes to text and such.

The other question is....how do you handle your waste stream of foam?

Tks

[9r2a5m70]

LOL...I was kidding about getting the 3D files of Elastagirl. I've had a crush on Elastagirl since we first met! Just a high tech wolf call on my part. I lost her to some boring life insurance salesman. ;-(

I do have a curiosity question?
I see you are doing larger than life size models.
Does the cost of the fourth axis really give you the return in orders and customer satisfaction?
In as much as you can divide your model up into layers and machine the positive side draft and glue the layers together then you are left with the "Hand Work" which is where the artists excel.

Or...are you headed to architectural props?

I've had a real talented gal named Zoe Cattel of BigBuzzDesign.com bid on some work here locally. She told me she finds it way faster to simply sculpt. I tend to agree with her until it comes to text and such.

The other question is....how do you handle your waste stream of foam?

Tks

Well in part to the return vs. cost I will say yes definitely. We have everyone in house to be able to put this together (except electrical which I think is going to be fairly simple). It's going to just be cost of materials. Now the unfortunate part is we have multiple customer who will not accept hand sculpted parts anymore. When we did the Pixar job the art director from pixar brought in a Micrometer, YES a micrometer. And we had to redo an Arm 4 times, we had to redo Elastagirls head twice. It turned into a 4 month project even though we had the characters done in 3 weeks. Fingers changed all sorts. They were very adamant the last time they came in for a meeting that they only want 5 Axis milling. We were able to convince them with a 4 axis we can do nearly the same thing. The fact is as well, we have 3 months worth of jobs all do in a month. We currently have 2 outsourced sculptors working for us plus our in house ones. And we are still bidding sculpted work that needs to be done for E3 (mid June). We absolutely need another alternative for sculpting (and most of our clients have pre-existing models, why not take advantage). One thing I have done in the past is do a rough cut on the router then let the sculptor do the finishing work. It seems like for our sculptors here most of the work goes into getting the overall character definition done. And if I can set it up and just let it run all day while we all work on other projects it ends up saving us time. The fact of the matter is the owner here wants either a Robotic arm, or a 5 axis machine no matter what we do with this shopbot. It's just a matter of time. Now as far as production like the hulks, we actually just had the one and made multiple molds so we could finish that job in 10 weeks.
Ok, guess that was a really long answer to such a simple question.
As far as waste, if it's bead foam we have a two solutions. One is a company that comes and picks it up and uses it in filler for waterfalls and pool decorations. The other is a bean bag company that regrinds it and fills it in their product. For the HDU foam we can the waste of and can mix it in with an A / B component and can use it as an adhesive for the HDU foam sheets and blocks. Although some of it does get just trashed unfortunately, but as little as possible.

[navigator7]

Well in part to the return vs. cost I will say yes definitely. Now, the unfortunate part is we have multiple customers who will not accept hand sculpted parts anymore. When we did the Pixar job the art director from pixar brought in a Micrometer, YES a micrometer. And we had to redo an Arm 4 times, we had to redo Elastagirls head twice. It turned into a 4 month project even though we had the characters done in 3 weeks. Fingers changed all sorts. They were very adamant the last time they came in for a meeting that they only want 5 Axis milling.

Wow! I find that so Incredible! Pardon the pun. What is the end use for the model? Is your product "proofs" for another end goal? Like eliminating actors or proving 3D models of action heros really look real?
I just can't imagine using a micrometer to measure a sculpture.
There has got to be a reason?

I remember reading about American history...when times are bad, watch Hollywood. Hollywood seemly prospers during bad times seeking to fill the void of people trying escape reality for a few hours.

I'm glad you are busy!


The fact of the matter is the owner here wants either a Robotic arm, or a 5 axis machine no matter what we do with this shopbot. It's just a matter of time.
Either way it seems your success is very well earned. Did you ever wake up one day and know your were going to be part of building over 200 Hulks?
I betcha the first one was fun and the last one was a PIA? ;-)

I spent some time working of on Free Willy 2, the movie. Edge Innovations made life size replicates of killer whales that were animatronic. Awesome stuff. They dressed the fake whales just like real actors. A real culture shock to me what Hollywood money types are willing to invest in.
Edge Innovations had all the aluminum whale parts on floppys. When we broke something during an action shot....they'd pull out a floppy, chuck up a piece of aluminum and push the go button and a cnc mill would go to town State of the art then. All the hollywood big shots would go fishing or get drunk or what ever they do...until the part was installed back in the whale. Blew my mind the money that would be spent.

One of the actors came back via helicopter and landed too close to make-up artist putting finishing touches on Willy the whale.....I thought the make up artist was going to commit suicide or commit homicide.


As far as waste, if it's bead foam we have a two solutions. One is a company that comes and picks it up and uses it in filler for waterfalls and pool decorations. The other is a bean bag company that regrinds it and fills it in their product. For the HDU foam we can the waste of and can mix it in with an A / B component and can use it as an adhesive for the HDU foam sheets and blocks.

Yep...you guys are on it. Foam in concrete hasn't caught on here yet. No suppliers like you guys either. There is a new product out there I am following that adds a foaming mixture to concrete/portland that produces a concrete like product that is 80% lighter and nearly as strong. I think the honey comb effect gives it strength. It is being promoted for theming but was developed in South America for architectural stuff.

[myxpykalix]

FYI, and I only saw a picture of a protype a long time ago but Shopbot had a 5 axis machine they were working on. I have not heard anything else about it or if it got off the ground but if the big whigs want a 5 axis machine...give em one! Call shopbot or maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.

[jsooter]

Ryan,

I love what you do. It is mind blowing! Thoroughly enjoyed looking at your website. I would really like to know how you make some of that stuff. Thanks

Jason