I have been wanting a Shopbot.....

[lex]

I like to "tinker" and really like making things out of wood and high density foam. So I am doing research on shopbots. I have no experience with any CNC equipment and can semi-use ACAD.

I was wondering if there are classes that I can take for this and have a few (probably stupid) questions.

First is power. I will be set up in a garage. Reading different threads I come up with the requirement for a 220 20 amp dedicated line. Is this the same for routers and spindles or do spindles have different requirements. Do I need three phase?

Vacuum hold down...I have a couple new 5 horse bosh vacuum pumps sitting on pallets. Would this be serious overkill? Should I trade them in on something smaller?

Dust collection...As I will be in a garage, I need pretty good collection or the wife will "complain". I see mostly just shop vacs in the photos...What would be an inexpensive method that wouldn't blow my eardrums out?

The results of wood carving I see are fantastic. Are these rough cut then sanded? Or does it carve that nice?

Bah 10,000 questions and I haven't even seen a machine in person yet

[harryball]

Lex,

FYI, I've had a 48x96 PRTAlpha with a 4HP HSD spindle for going on 6 months.

Try to locate and attend a shopbot camp if at all possible. This would be a great place to learn and see the machine first hand. You may also ask Shopbot if they have a person nearby you willing to demo or just ask on the board in the find shopbot owner topic.

I have a 30x40 attached shop disguised as a garage. I pulled a 100Amp sub panel over to my bot off my main panel and brought all my power connections out of it. What I did was probably over kill, I put a meter on it and with everything running I was pulling about 10 amps. I'm sure it pulls more when running faster with an actual cutting load... but that's a lot of head room.

I use two fein vacuums for hold down, that gives me about 7" of Hg and 240 cfm and they are quiet. I don't know what your Bosh pumps pull but you want to meet or exceed my specs to have a reasonably servicable system. Some guys run with a single fein which cuts your cfm in half. Vacuum holds things in place but airflow (cfm) maintains vacuum when you have leaks from edges and cut through.

Dust collection, very big deal for me. I went with a 3HP Super Dust Gorilla from Oneida. It's one of the quieter units I've heard but still makes a fair amount of noise. It arrived in good condition and is well built. You may not need such a large unit but they have many options.

Wood cutting and/or carving on the bot can be the entire process or just the beginning. Some folks (like myself and I believe Brady falls into the category) really don't like sanding and finishing. While my main stream business keeps clicking away I've had some success cutting small unfinished signage, address plaques, wall decor and such.

To anticipate a question... how do I market my custom unfinished projects? Best thing I ever did was get everyone's street address number in our Sunday School class and make everyone an address marker as a Christmas present. It was something I wanted to do, but it also let everyone know what I can do. I'm getting about $80.00 for five 6" beveled letters and a small plaque with a baby name on it... unfinished and ready to paint. I'll cut it all out of the same Trupan blank. I might have 15 minutes machine time. Not going to get rich... but $80.00 can give my family a movie and dinner night that doesn't impact our budget so it seems free!

Hope that helps.

Robert

[jeffreymcgrew]

Lex, first off: it depends on what machine you go with on the power requirements. We've got a PRT96 with a router and the 4G upgrade, and it runs on single phase, 120 volt, plain old grounded outlets. Has yet to trip the breaker, and I think it's on a 15 amp one. Anyways, I think that the Alpha is available as a two 20-amp 120 plug unit instead of a single 220 one. Or at least a Alpha benchtop I used was once set up that way. But if you want a spindle you'll need a dedicated line...

Which brings us to number Three on your list, dust collection. It's really important for health, and anything above a small bag style collector will probably need at least a dedicated 20 amp line if not more. Ours did (30 amp actually).

We've gotten wood carvings off the table that require hardly any sanding. It depends a lot more on what you're carving, how you're doing it, and how long you want it to take...

[gene]

Lex,
Have you looked at the show and tell folder yet?
also look at the vectric.com site at what some people are doing with the bots . Dont let the computer side scqare you , its realy alot easier to catch on to than it may seem. also there are no stupid questions, everyone here on the forum is here to help eachother and this had alot of weight when a was looking at the bots. I have a alpha 48x96 with a spindle and a 7.5 hp roots blower all single phase and use it more and more frequently as time goes on . i have been well satisfied with the purchase . Good luck

[gwilson]

I wanted one for three years, finally got it in Nov. Love my bot, and wife not too jealous. I have a PRT96, and I too run it on 2 110v outlets. I have one for the router and the controller, then one for my dust colletor (2hp from harbor freight) and my shopvac for the holddown system. All are 20amp breakers and have not kicked one yet.

[rcnewcomb]

> Dust collection
VENT IT OUTSIDE: Our dust collector actually lives outside. That is an easy way to save your ears. We hate to use it when it is -20 outside because it sucks all the heat out of the shop -- but if you are in Florida that should not be an issue. If you are in a residential area be considerate of your neighbors regarding noise and dust. Mike Richards found that making plaques and such and _giving_ them to the neighbors reduced the complaints. <grin>

GET AN AIR CLEANER: We have the Delta 50-875 that we have hung in the rafters and it really does improve air quality especially when sanding or finishing. We also use a downdraft table for sanding but the air cleaner really helps. It was certainly the best $250 we spent.

Finally, get a decent set of ear protectors and WEAR THEM.

[lex]

I know it may sound strange but I am not really planning on making money with the shopbot. I plan on several projects the first of which is linked to breast cancer support and the second making custom kitchen cabinets for my wife. Then I know a guy that makes flats boats from all composite materials (foam and honeycomb) and wanted to cut some parts for him. Since he is doing it by hand I think the cut parts would be alot more accurate. Then my brother has a very small car lot that I would like to make a sign for....And on and on. Basically I enjoy learning, doing, and helping others. Shopbot will be my next (I hope) vehicle for that.
Since I do alot of swapping I seem to collect items that have multiple uses. I.E. two 5 horse vacuum pumps. The shopbot would give me another quid-pro-qou avenue that would be fun as well


On the pumps they are SV1063s specs according to busch: flow 45, in.hg 27, acfm 44, end vacuum 27, motor 2.2kw, wght 174, db 70. So I figure I'll sell them as they are way more than what I can use. LOL they will go with the 21 SEW Euromotors that have been in the garage for the last 4 years.

I downloaded the vectric carvepro freebee and will mess with it a bit. Seems pretty straight forward but I may read the directions. (Wife complaint:P)



Thanks for the support so far

[gene]

What type of work are you doing to help support Breast Cancer ? I will bet if you need help with this you will recieve it. There is no more terrible thing than cancer.

[elcruisr]

Lex, you just missed the Camp ShopBot up here in Winter Garden but if you want to see a 'bot in person you're welcome to come by the shop here on the west side of Orlando. If you want to talk vacuum I run a 15 hp regenerative blower and wish I had more on occasion. That being said I work in a production environment. Vacuum hold down for sheet stock is as much about flow rate as inches of hg!

Be glad to try and help you out.

[lex]

Gene, My wife has Inflammatory Breast Cancer. It is a particularly nasty version that does not show up as lumps. (And therefore much harder to detect.) While "supporting" her through the operations and chemo I met many women with it and many of their husbands. I found that many of the husbands felt much like me...Completely lost and inadaqaute..while she went through this and I could do little to help her.
The men are supposed to be the protector and keep their families safe...But here you sit around and watch, trying to keep their spirits up while the doctors and nurses do their work.
So I want to make some plaques for the cancer institues and for the husbands that try to support their wives. (Trust me there are some that do not.)
I also thought of making some type of plaque as a "reward" for donations. I.E. buisenesses that donate to breast cancer get a nice little plaque thanking them for their support.
Another one I thought of was to make a nice carving that would have a motivational, supportive saying on it and offer them on E-bay and such and the proceedes go to the local cancer society. If someone else wants to do this it would be great
I think it will be a while before I can get to that point.

Eric, Thanks for the offer. It would be interesting to see yours in action. It would be good to see both a production and non production shop
I was thinking about vacuum and the ways we use it here at work. We have about 20 full time engineers designing machinery and we utilize vacuum on all of them. I could start a "government project" to get something designed like that but the problem (As I see it) would be cutting into the vacuum plate when you had to pass through the material and cost. How do you stop from cutting up your vacuum table now?

Lex

[elcruisr]

I use 1/2" trupan as a spoil board over a "waffle" plenum with six zones. Just suck through the spoil board to hold parts and if there's much uncovered I just throw on some laminate scraps to cover the extra surface. When it gets cut up to much I just resurface it with a spoil board cutter untill it's to thin then I just replace it. Typically lasts several months of full time cutting.

Spousal support is not just a problem with cancer, believe me! My wife has advanced multiple sclerosis. The divorce rate runs about 90% within a few years of diagnosis. I'm still here after 15 years. One thing is with cancer you got a chance of recovery......

[lex]

I found a couple more pics of the "waffle board" and think I understand now that you use a sacrificial board as the top of the vacuum plate. You drill holes in the board for the suction as needed.
The machinery we manufacture uses either stainless or aluminum hold down plates for the most part though a few use HDPE for special purposes. We use either a manual pull switch for activation or phuematic valves charged via timing channels/PLC.
Other than cost would there be an advantage using trupan over HDPE as your waffle board?
I would think that the HDPE would result in much better vacuum characteristics. The price difference may be offset by the savings in electricity/vacuum equipment costs.
Also we use 5" alum and plastic tube as vacuum manifolds. We have found that 10" length is optimum for each pnuematic valve with a minimum of four feet. However, I think that the vacuum on our machines will have much less vacuum loss than a shopbot. Also one of the requirements for the "optimum" was vacuum reaction time. I doubt that would be a factor here.
On the spoil board...How do you keep it flat and limit the vacuum loss from the porous material?

Lex

[rcnewcomb]

>I think it will be a while before I can get to that point.

Lex,
I would be delighted to collaborate with you on this. We do mostly v-carving and 3D carving so we are experienced with the formats you describe. My 'Bot has some spare time available. You can show some samples around and get people's reactions. This way you could have some files already developed and ready to cut when you finally do get your Shopbot.

You can contact me via e-mail:
randall (at) 222artisans (dot) com

[elcruisr]

Lex, no holes, all suction through porous MDF spoilboard. Waffle board was made from MDF and sealed with water based polyurethane. This type of system is actually a standard set up for a panel processing CNC router. Keeping it flat is just going over it with a 1.25 surface cutter. Takes about 15 minutes.

If I could afford it I would make the waffle board from a stable plastic but the sealed MDF with plywood under it has worked pretty good for 6 years and over 150,000 parts.....

[slayer]

I been wanting one of my own. but i don't have that kind of cash i just use the schools during my shop class i go to. I think this is the best machine i have ever see. its like a million machines build into one butt kicking machine. I have done lots of work and i have to say this is well worth the money. if your like me you will just start it up walk away and work on another thing. also it doesn't complain about over time or complain it wants to stop working and take a 2 hour lunch brake.like other people say depends on the type you want. they both come in 120 and 220. I am using the heavy duty one and i have to say its a pretty nice machine if you got that much more to spend. *note you can always got a 120 and upgrade your componets later* They sell you the higher grade componets to upgrade if you don't have the money to get the costly one at the time your going to get one. Also if you have the money to do this its a nice feature to add to your shop. Run a power braker just to your CNC so if something happens you can always just hit the switch and it will cut it off.