New ShopBot Owner

[dttworld]

Hi All,

I am a new ShopBot owner and look forward to using this forum. Seeing this giant crate in my garage and knowing the potential of what I will do with this machine makes me feel giddy ;-)

Thank you ShopBot for sponsoring the Instructables ShopBot contest!

Danh

[sebago_signworks]

this forum is awesome... welcome to the community.

[myxpykalix]

Were you the person who won the shopbot challenge on instructables.com?:confused:

[dttworld]

this forum is awesome... welcome to the community.

Thanks. Forums have been so helpful to me. I built a CNC Mill based on projects at CNCZone. Also got help with some concrete at the JohnBridge forum. I'll start with cutting wood, then plastic, then aluminum sheets on the ShopBot. Gonna scan this forum to find out what bits to buy.

[dttworld]

Were you the person who won the shopbot challenge on instructables.com?:confused:

I was lucky in winning the ShopBot. There were a lot of good entries.

[Brady Watson]

I was lucky in winning the ShopBot. There were a lot of good entries.

Danh,
Welcome to the SB Forum!

Your entry was very impressive! Brilliant solution to an age old problem. Congratulations on your new machine. I think you are going to love the new capabilities that you will have at your fingertips!

-Brady

[CNYDWW]

Congrats on the win.

I looked over the information on the contest some time ago but haven't had a chance to look up your entry. If you could post a link for those that would be interested on your winning submission that'd be great.

"The itch will never be scratched."

Regards
Randy

[letterman7]

http://www.instructables.com/id/StorageBot-voice-controlled-robotic-parts-finder/

[dttworld]

Danh,
Welcome to the SB Forum!

Your entry was very impressive! Brilliant solution to an age old problem. Congratulations on your new machine. I think you are going to love the new capabilities that you will have at your fingertips!

-Brady

Thanks. It was a fun project where I got to do a little bit of mechanics, electronics and software. Biggest challenge was knowing when to stop and running short on time. An apparent trend on most of my projects!

[myxpykalix]

That was very creative and what i was struck by was that what you had created was a shopbot that was sitting on its side. You had a X for up/down and Y for left/right and Z for pushing the bins.

If you are like most of us you start at one end open/close, open/close till you find the right bin or like me where you have big coffee cans full of all different sizes types and you just dump it on the shopbot table and rummage thru the pile till you find what you need then scoop it all up and dump it back in the can:eek:

On another note i'd like to talk to you off forum about an idea i've had for the shopbot but i need some advice on specific electronics you may know about.
Well deserved win.....good for you!:D myxpykalix@hotmail.com

As i was thinking about this when describing that you had a shopbot on its side, it struck me that you could possibly program an interface to speak and do this:
"Shopbot! Safe Z, go to position X 48, Y 24
How cool is this, we have a GEEK:D here to help us dummies....Welcome!

[chiloquinruss]

CONGRATULATIONS! and welcome aboard. You are a very talented and creative person, well done. Two words about your ShopBot assembly project, 1. level and 2. square. Assembly is straight froward and goes quickly. However keeping your machine level and square will be most important for getting the best results. It will certainly be easier that your remarkable wood frame cnc project! :) I loved your project but I would be sacred to death to have my Bot VOICE activated! :eek: Russ

[dttworld]

......
As i was thinking about this when describing that you had a shopbot on its side, it struck me that you could possibly program an interface to speak and do this:
"Shopbot! Safe Z, go to position X 48, Y 24
How cool is this, we have a GEEK:D here to help us dummies....Welcome!

The voice activation using the older Microsoft Speech engine wasn't that great. In fact, during the video I disabled it so my voice wouldn't be picked up. Notice why I had to go to the keyboard and check an enable button before the speech demo. More realistic approach would be a touch screen interface.

I could see the usefulness of a text to speech output though. The ShopBot could pronounce commands for something like the touch strip: ie- "zeroing Z position", "continuity test, please touch strip to tool end", "continuity confirm, please place touch strip on bed surface and hit enter". This would probably be annoying after a while but could be a configurable option for newbies.

Actually, now you have the gears in my head churning. Imagine if there were a demo mode on the ShopBot that would move the different parts during the intro. For example: speak "this is the X-car" then move the X-car, speak "this is the position of the x limit switch" then move to the X-limit position.

[dttworld]

...However keeping your machine level and square will be most important for getting the best results. It will certainly be easier that your remarkable wood frame cnc project! :) .. Russ

Thanks. Just about to start assembling the frame. I notice how the steel parts are nicely painted in a "Duke Blue Devils" like color. Can't be a coincidence , right Ted? ;-)