Tiling Toolpaths with Feed-through

[Chazz]

Hi folks,

Stepping up my CNC game again here. I manually cut a 2'x4' world map early on to kind of proving to myself that I could do it. It was a pain but I was successful. Now, I see that there is an option to do much of the dirty work. WAY COOL! However, there is one part that seem to be left out.... when you do the tiling in feed-through mode, you need good alignment when feeding the material through.

Bringing this to the Desktop, the only feed-through option is along the Y axis. How does one create a good set of pilot holes? The bed is only 18 inches; but the hole centers can't be 18" apart because it would not work with the standard spoiler board. (humm, I could oversize my spoiler board) I picked 16" to give a little room. However, when I slide the material 16" through, how do I keep it aligned? My only thought is to put the holes at 8" centers. Cut the first tile (with aligning holes at 0", 8" and 16"). Then feed the material 8 inches, clamp it down, cut the 16" aligning hole, feed 8", clamp it down, cut 16" aligning hole and T2 tile... It would work; but I fear that the 8" span that the alignment is based upon would be kind of weak.

Thoughts?
Thanks

[Chazz]

I forgot to mention that my current project is going to be cut from a 1x4 that is 39" long.

[Brady Watson]

There are other threads about tiling here & on the Vectric forum, but the beginning of this video should give you some ideas. Be sure to revisit the help file in your Vectric software because it does a good job of explaining everything you need to know about doing it.

https://youtu.be/qamt1w3kHaA

-B

[scottp55]

Bill Young was kind enough to post the files for his oversize "wedging top" for the Desktop. If you look at this link,
https://app.box.com/wedging-top

Under "wedges and fences" You'll find that "Y fence" that Ted pointed out in the video Brady showed.
If you can't Joint your material...perhaps 2 of those with one on the Y axis having dowel holes drilled(profile/inside line/spiral ramped/ 1FUP?), and the other attached to your material? Then you could index almost anything through in a variety of increments, without having to cut your material or spoilboard each time?
scott

[scottp55]

Chazz,
Also maybe something like in the last pic on this thread, as well as the link, will give you some ideas?
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?18321-desktop-with-long-boards&highlight=desktop+tiling

Also have a friend who made his Y-fence into a ruler with a steep VBit and with pencil marks he gets DARN close when he indexes through and then just re-clamps with wedges(he has a modified version of Bill's spoilboard as do our two).

[Chazz]

There are other threads about tiling here & on the Vectric forum, but the beginning of this video should give you some ideas. Be sure to revisit the help file in your Vectric software because it does a good job of explaining everything you need to know about doing it.

https://youtu.be/qamt1w3kHaA

-B

Cool advertising video; but I didn't see much in the way of specs for the indexing. It kind of looked like they made a secondary jig to put the material in which dealt with the indexing. Either that, or they put the indexing on the material; but I didn't see it in the part they cut first so I suspect not.

[Brady Watson]

I've seen their setup as a gear rack of sorts that allows for registration pegs etc. I don't need to index material much with a 5x16' machine...but for times when I have, I just use a pencil mark or one made by the machine on the material that represents the tile distance. You line your material up like normal the first toolpath. Then move it to the pencil mark for the next section. Pencil mark goes to machine 0 point for respective axis. It's really that simple. No need to make it complicated or over-think jigs.

-B