a diy junkyard speacial pen plotter, hot cutter
im new here, and have no experience with cnc, so pardon if im not using the proper terms.
I have a long term project i'm starting on soon, that of a "junkyard special" dule use pen ploter, and ripstop sail clouth cutter (that is a "hot" cutter using a pen style sauldering iron in place of the pen), this is for cutting kite sails out of ripstop nylon, and also drawing sail templats on paper or 1\4th masonite, (probably with a fine piont sharpie)
heres my wish list,
a "garage tinkerer" diy simple dezine. using hardware, ebay, and scrap yard available structural and electronic components, and no machining other than a drill press miter saw, and hand tools.
it will be mounted to a 46" x 78" glass top table (my work table) i would like it to park off the table in about 12" space. the table is also dule use, as my light table so the front feed rail should be out of the way of the tables edge
i only need a x/y axis, with a pen up, pen down
a tolerence of +\- 1/32"
the ability to plot an arc, or cut an angle within the given tolerence (+\- 1/32) with minimised "zig zag").
self zero
it looks like ebay may solve most of the dificult electricle problems for me, just looking at tons of software & hardware that gets the computer talking to the stepper motors, wich are also available on ebay.
i was thinking of a gantry design, the gantry moved by timing belts, from the table side, powered gantry side for the tool head, with the tool movment (z-axis) a simple servo, up or down.
go build a kite!
for info go to www.kitebuilder.com/kiosk.html