Great article in CabinetMaker Terry!

[mgcain]

If you haven't seen the article in CabinetMaker magazine yet - Terry Cheney has a great profile of how his shop uses a shopbot, eCabinets, and CabinetPartsPro in a father and son operation producing cabinets etc. I loved it! This is the model I am using for my business as well - hoping to get the bot yet this year...

you can see the article online here:
http://www.cabinetmakeronline.com/Articles/0701CMvic2.htm

[johnnie53]

Great article! Which model shopbot are you using? I find it interesting that you can nest parts without a vacum hold down system. I sold my old PR last year and hope to buy a new PRS standard, that is if I can convince my wife about the deal. We have a custom cabinet shop ( since 81'). Another local shop just put a $140,000 plus new CNC in there shop. I've been looking at there new construction system, other than the speed of the exspensive machine and heavy workloads, there's nothing there that a Shopbot couldn't do. Even though there a face frame style cabinetshop, they double up on partitions, and use system holes for all there hinges,slides, pullouts , etc. Nothing is cut on a table saw anymore, very interesting!If they can stay busy they can pay for it, but the rest of us( small shops) can't. Parts Wizard and Cabinet Parts Pro makes the whole deal work. I have KCDw ( and Cabnetware) but I can't afford there CNC program.

[mziegler]

Terry, I also find it interesting your are run full sheets without use a vacuum system. How many screws do you need to hold the sheets in place? Are the screws only place in the waste areas of the sheet? Have you try to use small lasers to locate the position of the screws? I was think that mounting six to eight lasers to the ceiling or wall would eliminate running a drilling program for every sheet. Are you using any tabs to hold the parts? Mark

[bcammack]

While not cheap, the z-laser from Carter products (www.carterproducts) is a really cool laser projection system. If you do a lot of custom work, you could project your CAD drawing of the parts on the table and place holddown screws through the waste material in an ad hoc fashion.

We use one above each of our big CNC mills that are used for routing countertops out of granite and engineered quartz. It will project the outline of the parts to be cut onto the table top. It is calibrated so that the 0,0 of the laser is the same as the 0,0 point of the CNC. You just throw it the DXF and it will project it on the table.

We put the vacuum pods on one layer, the part outlines on another, and the drawing text on a third. I have the projection program configured to project them individually or in any combination. The operator can accurately place the Blick pods, suck 'em down to the table, and then project the piece outlines atop the pods so they can be placed with 1/8" accuracy.

We don't actually cut the parts out on the mills, but on either a bridge saw or a waterjet cutter, so part placement is super-critical (we only cut them 1/4" proud of finished dimension).

We're presently considering placing the lasers over the bridge saws so we can utilize our ProNest nesting software to get maximium material utilization thru the saw process and to expedite their layout step.

We put 200 kitchens through this place in December.

[don62]

found neat drill press laser at woodcraft:
www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=5475 (http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=5475)
for $39.95 that could be modified to mount on the z axis. inexpensive enough to give it a try

[terry]

Sorry Guys, I didn't see this post till now. Been busy.

Our 'bot is a 2002 48x144, PRT. I bought it used in 2005. It came with a 5 hp columbo spindle.

I don't use screws in the plywood itself. I cut small blocks of wood from 1/2" Russian birch, aprox 1 1/4" wide and 2" long. I drill a hole in the center of this piece for the screw. I place one end of this piece on top of the plywood and screw into the table. The angle of the piece and the downward pressure keep the piece from moving. I put two on each end, total of four. This way I never hit a screw.

I cut the nested parts as normal. I cut in two passes. There are a couple of key ingredients though. First, I use a 1/4" down-spiral bit. This packs the sawdust into the cut and helps hold the pieces in place. If you use a straight bit or up-spiral bit, this won't work. Second, I cut in two passes, with the last cut only about 1/16" thick. Third, I cut at 2" per second at 7900 rpm. This keeps the chip size size from turning to powder and keeps my spindle running very cool. (I used to cut everything at 18000 rpm and couldn't figure out why a bit only lasted about 2 sheets. Slow it down! Chip load calculator helps a lot. Bits will cut 15 - 20 sheets now and have very little burning.) Fourth, cut order and direction are critical. CabinetPartsPro lets you set that easily.

There are limitations. Small pieces are a problem, so I still cut them on the table saw. And things are not a stable as are with a vac hold down. This way of doing it isn't perfect, but it makes the 'bot productive.

Since the article I purchased a 10 HP Gast regenerative blower, but haven't had the time to hook it up yet. I'm looking forward to having things more stable so parts are more accurate and so I can cut all my small pieces.

If you are looking to buy a ShopBot, buy the Alpha. The faster speeds are something I look forward to when I upgrade. My 12' table is great when I need it, but 99% of the time I only cut plywood, so a 8' table would take up less space.

Also, CabinetPartsPro is what made the 'bot productive for me. I reccomend you get it as a starting point. As mentioned above, the 'bot can do about anything the bigboys can. BUT, the PROGRAMING is the KEY, and the KICKER. Programing each piece in PartsWizard is doable, but very slow and not profitable. (Been there, done that.) And, I am not ready to drop 8 grand + for any of the cabinet software out there. But I probably will in the future. Right now CPP let's me make money with the 'bot.

So what did you think of the star that is on the table on the cover of the magazine?