Photos of your Variations and Modifications requested for discussion gallery

[gerald_d]

Hi All

I am assembling a collection of pictures of customization done by ShopBotters to publish on a discussion gallery. Send me your raw photos and I will do the resize/cropping work and then sort them into categories. eg. Dust feet, probes, vacuum holds, limit switches, etc.

It will take a few days to get it all together, but the first results will definitely be published on a web site by Xmas. All sources will be credited, unless you prefer to stay anon.

The format will be very similar to this Forum, except that the pics will be much larger and higher resolution. I think it will be fun (and useful) to see a thread for example on dust collecting feet that starts off with a whole lot of different pictures of various people's efforts and masterpieces. And then a whole thread that starts off with pics of z-zero plates......etc.

Don't worry about sending me a lot of words of description - just go out with your camera, snap a heap of pictures (or look in your old folders) and mail them to gdpost@gmail.com (mailto:gdpost@gmail.com).

Remember, we are looking for variations and modifications. It does not matter if your SB is an older model or not - what did you do to customize your Bot? Your part is easy, just do the pics - I'll do all the work.

[billp]

Gerald,
I have a lot of "mods" pictured from my travels doing the Shopbot Camps.I've been showing them to "Campers" over the last few months, but your idea should cover a much larger audience.... They are on the shop computer so I'll assemble them and get them to you tomorrow sometime.

[gerald_d]

Thanks Bill, I would really appreciate that.

[bleeth]

Gerald-You just have to promise not to post them and then take them down after a few days because of.............etc.

Dave

[gerald_d]

Hi Dave, I can't promise to host the pics forever because it may end up costing me too much. Today, when search engine crawlers start giving you things like "image search" it means that there are web-crawlers that continously download pictures and file (cache) them away. I discovered that the biggest "hit" on a site's bandwidth is not the regular blokes like you and me, but it is the Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, etc., etc. sites raking through the pictures, often. Here (http://images.google.com/images?q=talkshopbot&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&r ls=GGLD%2CGGLD:2004-43%2CGGLD:en&start=180&sa=N&filter=0) is Google's cache of 793 pics on this forum.. There is a way of blocking well-behaved crawlers from the pictures, but then they penalise you on rankings.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the pics will be up for as long a time as possible, to the benefit of this direct community. When the lurkers start making it expense, I will re-consider. Here I will not be concerned about search engine rankings, so I will block them from the outset.

[mikejohn]

Gerald
Will there be enough room for a whole series of pictures showing step by step modifications?
Will it be possible to link from this Forum when pertinent questions about modifications are asked, or will it be stand alone?

Are you charged for bandwidth use?

.............Mike

[gerald_d]

Mike, I have a lot of free space and bandwith on a server at the moment, and I think it will cope okay if the major lurkers are kept at bay.

Yes, of course it will be linkable from this Forum, and it is not meant as a replacement for this one.

Let's not get too concerned about what may happen in 2006 - now I am only looking at getting a (surprise? - not anymore!) Xmas present together for 2005! Ho, Ho, Ho
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After Xmas we can reassess the situation depending on feedback and actual space/bandwidth chewed up.

So, mail your pics to gdpost@gmail.com (mailto:gdpost@gmail.com) - my mailbox has 2000 MB free!

This rough list may prompt you to think of what you modified......

Mechanical: Base Table, Work Holding Systems, XY-Gantry, YZ car, Rails and Rollers, Hold-downs, Driving Mechanisms, Motor/s & Mountings, Spindle/router mountings

Electr.: Contoller/Drivers, Power supplies, Grounding or Earthing, Cooling, Dust Proofing, Computers & peripherals, Pendant Controls, E-stops, limits, Zero-plate & probes

Thanks for the couple of submissions so far!

[billp]

Another possibility if this gets too cumbersome for Gerald's web page; use the Shopbot "Blog"page. This way we could use their bandwith, AND people would be able to "comment" and contribute to the page...

[gerald_d]

Bill, remember that a lot of folk have issues with cropping and re-sizing of their photos, and I am offering to do this part. (The Blog site doesn't lend itself to categorising and editing the subjects). I will have a facility to comment and contribute, exactly as per the format of this Forum, so there is nothing new to learn.

Again, thanks to the folk who have mailed pics so far. (Bill, I'm on the edge of my chair waiting in anticipation for your promised bulk deposit
)

[billp]

I sent it to you an hour ago. If for some reason you have not received it, please let me know. Lots of wild wind currents between here and the Southern hemisphere, and e-mails have been known to get lost...

[gerald_d]

Got it - thanks!

[mikejohn]

Bill, Messages from you to Gerald should be lots faster than messages from Gerald to you.
It's all going down hill his way!
What Double entendre?
.....................Mike

[robtown]

Gentlemen,
I run my own webserver at the shop, if anyone is interested I can host the whole kit and kaboodle for the promise of a pint or something like that...

[gerald_d]

Thanks for the offer Rob - I may have to take you up on it later, but so far I am not concerned yet.

There is still space for lots more pics, and may I again ask everyone to photograph their mods and mail them to gdpost@gmail.com (mailto:gdpost@gmail.com). I havn't acknowledged the contributions on an individual basis so far, and plan to send out thank you mails on the weekend - if you don't get a mail from me by Sunday night, then I didn't get your contribution. (However, I've found Gmail to be very good in passing on mails.)

[robtown]

No Problemo,
let me know what I can do to help, it might give me a good excuse to deploy that Linux Server Box that's gathering dust over in the corner...

[gerald_d]

Well Ladies & Gentlemen (and Mike_J),

One day left at the shop before the weekend, so remember to pack your cameras tonight and take some pics of your "BotMods" tomorrow....

Some of you may have pics up on your own websites and blogs - please let me know if I could use those pics, and tell me the address.

So far there has been only 8 contributors. Surely there are a lot more inventive folk out there?

[Stephan (Unregistered Guest)]

Hi Gerald

You got mail.

[gerald_d]

Hi All

Well, Father Xmas is tired and wants to go to bed. Spent the last couple of days wading through pictures (and words) and have come up with this (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/search.cgi?method=last&number=27&units=1440&tree=O N&where=all).

It is a work-in-progress, and your feedback and discussion is needed to bring it to life. For those whose pics already appear, I'll move your further comments nearer to the pictures.

More work needs to be done on categorising and titling, but the general flow seems to be in place.

Again, many thanks to those that submitted stuff. Some were so kind as to send their own "libraries", but maybe they did not have everyone's copyright. If you want stuff taken out, drop me a note to gdpost@gmail.com (mailto:gdpost@gmail.com) - sorry for the inconvenience if this applies.

All the best
Gerald

[gerald_d]

May I just add that I was the sole poster to that forum so far - I posted under all the names you see there because that was the clearest way to acknowledge whose pictures those are.

The HotBot Forum (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/search.cgi?method=last&number=27&units=1440&tree=O N&where=all)

[zeykr]

Very nice Gerald! Lots of good info - it'll take a few days to dig through. Thanks for taking this project on - it will be very helpful!

[stevem]

Gerald, that's a great site. Feel free to use any of the pics I've sent you.

[hespj]

Absolutely brilliant.

I could just spend all my time tinkering instead of producing anything.

[jhicks]

Fantastic to see it all in one organized place. Guess I better start to get creative and use some of these great ideas. Hope to make a contribution soon.

[mrdovey]

Gerald...

Very nice job! Thank you.
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...Morris

[gerald_d]

Thanks guys.

There are some huge gaps still to be filled (Morris, I am looking at you!) and I am still taking submissions (and permissions) at gdpost@gmail.com (mailto:gdpost@gmail.com).

The links I gave above take you to a search of the last few days - with time, it may not reveal anything. The link to bookmark, the one that goes to the front door, is this (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/discus.cgi?pg=topics) one. But I still need to tidy up the front door a bit.

[benchmark]

Gerald

Congratulations another fine piece of engineering.

Paul

[dvanr]

Gerald

Nicely done!!

[stickman]

Gerald,

Nice job on the site. To all of those that have contributed, WOW! Some of the things I have looked at in the last couple of days have blown my mind. I'm pretty resourceful, or at least I thought I was. I really like the vacumn table and pod ideas, I just need the time to get to that. I think that would make my sign making so much easier. I also liked the pictures of the different attachments or tooling that people have adapted to the machine. I really would like to do something along the lines of ShopBot's drilling head.

Anyhow, I wanted to thank everyone.. especially Gerald for putting all the effort into a great collection.

Thank, Gerald (my hat off to you)

Jay

[gerald_d]

Thanks Jay & Dick & Paul, I think that is really only the tip of the iceberg. There are stacks of folk out there who think "outside of the box" and that site is a tribute to them. One of my personal favourites is David Buchsbaum's "indexer (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/show.cgi?tpc=8&post=44#POST44)"

[mikejohn]

Gerald, notice he's got some poor young lady standing there turning the handle for goodness knows how long


..............Mike

[gerald_d]

Slave labour - we should report him to the "China" thread.

[beacon14]

I beg y'all's pardon - she's hardly a slave - she's a volunteer! Actually a paid apprentice. And the operation in the photo is nothing compared to the hour of "turning" she did whilst I ran the belt sander up against that cylinder.

I considered rigging up a small motor to turn that drum but quickly realized it would take longer to do that than to just get the job done by hand. Sometimes automation is more trouble than it's worth.

[dvanr]

I recognize the girl...


Thats Tina Turner

[mikejohn]

David
Any chance you could tell us what that drum was all about?
.................Mike

[gerald_d]

See this (http://www.beaconcustomwoodwork.com/GALLERIES/G-Office.htm) page on David's website, the pedestal at the bottom. More here (http://www.beaconcustomwoodwork.com/GALLERIES/G-Shop.htm)

[beacon14]

Mike, I thought you'd never ask. I've been working for that corporate client off and on for years, and each time they asked me if I could "fix" the statue base, which had been veneered with contact cement and was badly chipping and peeling. I decided to dispense with the veneer altogether and fabricate a replacement using solid wood, and ended up designing a 20-sided barrel. I figured the ShopBot would be the easiest way to dress the 20-faceted glue-up down to a cylinder. You can’t really call my set-up an indexer as there was no method of indexing anything, it’s really more of a makeshift lathe. I thought I could turn the drum quickly while the SB moved slowly along the centerline – this turned out to be a fast way to put horrific tear-out over every square inch of my now nicely round drum. I followed with a few light passes running the SB back and forth while turning the cylinder a few degrees after each traverse (manual indexer?). This gave a much cleaner cut, but I was pushing the limits of how much wood I could safely remove (if the next pass didn’t come out perfect I’d be S.O.L.) and I had not nearly removed all the tear-out from the first pass so I decided to take the safe route and sand the surface smooth while turning the drum. Considering how little effort I expended to create the set up the results were quite sweet as the finished photos will attest.

The beveled disc was even more of a challenge. This set-up really is an indexer, as I used the SB to create a circular array of 20 locating holes in the underside of the workpiece, and then used the SB again to “surface” 20 facets into the original veneered disc. After glueing up solid wood to the 20 facets, it was back to the SB to “turn” the bevel smooth, a process which turned out to be quick, easy and fun (three qualities we Americans value highly).

Notice after fabrication of the two parts I separated the solid wood from the MDF cores to allow for wood movement.

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trimming the ends

185
sanded smooth

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1st facet - notice the original veneer peeling

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more facets - the white board taped on helped with dust collection

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ready for finish

[jhicks]

I am sure I saw someone's idea on the forum about using low cost laser levels to dial in the X & Y axis but couldn't find the thread anywhere, so am posting mine here. Thanks to that other botters ingenious post, I asked for a couple laser levels for Christmas and set up the quick and simple zero calibration lights.
Need some tweaking and perhaps some more permanent mounting but for testing, I simply used double sided tape, stuck them on the gantry and spindle and am sold.
Photo on left is gantry mounted and right on spindle.
I discovered some mechanical settings were not as square as I would have thought as I set it up but that was an extra bonus. After resetting the spindle and gantry frame, mounting the lasers, and running it across the table and my fences a few times, I'm sold that this is a much more effective and efficient method of getting where I want to go with the least amount of guesswork.
Thanks to whomever posted those earlier photos and Merry Christmas.
PS" these level lites were from Home Depot but not sure how much $. Probably reasonable though and what a nice addition and assurance you're on the spot. The nice features include micro rotary and horizontal adjustment dials for perpendicularity and centering the device laser in X,Y&Z once they are mounted in place

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[steve4460]

Hi Jerry

Check out this post for my laser setup http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/29/10296.html?1134216508
Thanks
Stepahn

[gerald_d]

Some recent activity at the "HotBot" forum. link (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/search.cgi?method=last&number=27&units=1440&tree=O N&where=all)