Vectric Customer

This project has an interesting way to plot an irregular profile for inlay at about 3 minutes in.



Phil

Seems as though using a robot for CNCing there should be a simpler way to scan the white lines and turn them into vectors for the toolpathing. I've done what the fellow in the video did on a couple of occasions. Jogging the pointed bit to where a node should be and then writing down the X and Y coordinates until I had enough to use to construct the vectors needed.

The GlowForge laser cutter has a camera under the lid which can look at a drawing on a board then turn it into an outline for either profiling out or etching inside. All perfectly aligned right where the drawing was.

It looks like a perfect opportunity for a new CNC accessory.... Vector positioning image scanner.

4D

Would taking a picture from above, with a ruler on top for scale, work? Since the vectros were drawn by hand, precision shouldn't be an issue, even if teh image was slightly tilted.

The challenges with taking a photo include mounting a camera, slight distortion, and knowing what the X/Y coordinates are for the image captured. In the youtube example shown above the project is never removed from the bed and the coordinates he writes down let him create a drawing that always lines up with where his work is held down.

Coordinates might be doable if the photo includes something that references where 0,0 is, and you can scale the image with precision.

I frequently have to line up toolpaths on already cut out unusual furniture part shapes. To be able to rotate and position vectors on an existing shape already clamped on the CNC bed using just a dynamic video image would be very useful.

4D

I'm always fond of low tech, simple ways to get a job done. No expensive equipment required. This technique works fine for this project.

Phil

Some brands of CNC control have the ability to record those manually acquired 2D points as a "manual scan" and save them as a DXF file, which really simplifies that process. I am thinking that I want one of those robotic arms. Not so sure I want to pay for the CAM program to generate the code tho.....

If you're using Mach3, it has a wizard called "Copycat" included. It allows you to manually jog around to points and record them. I use my microscope that's mounted on the Z axis to locate the points, but you can also just place a pointed cutter into the spindle as he does.
It's been handy for me on several occasions.