Basically a beefed-up ShopBot

Hi All

We have run a 8'x4' ShopBot since 2000 and have done very well with it. Now the cutting orders are getting bigger and heavier and have built a second router table for 9'x6' boards (standard size in South Africa). Somehow the name "MechMate" evolved, and you can see pics at: http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/messages/329/646.html
(For those interested in ShopBots in general, feel free to look around the rest of the crude site)

The major components of the Mechmate are basically interchangeable with the ShopBot (motors, racks, cars, slides) to give us some redundancy in case of breakdowns. The MechMate will be Gecko/Mach3 driven.

Toying with the idea of selling plans/kits for this beast, with the emphasis on the mechanicals, because that is where my experience lies. Any comments on this please?

All the best
Gerald (in Cape Town)

Nice design. Very clean and looks easy to adjust and align.

Your site is terrific., complete and very informative. If someone (like me) was looking to make a larger system and use a BUNCH of you good ideas - I hope you'd be pleased.
Thanks for sharing.
:cheers: Jim
btw - you're bookmarked just behind the 'zone!
I am also surprised you're not selling your tyres! :D

Thanks for the positive comments.

I am also surprised that nobody has come up with these "tyres"
http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/messages/11/594.html

Selling them overseas from here would be a waste because somebody is going to copy them to save the freight cost.

Gerald,
thanks for your detailed site and work on shopbot and similar routers. very very interesting to me and many others i'm sure.
I would buy a bunch of your tyres..
Did you make the linear rail yourself, too? grinding a vee onto angle iron would be a very economical way, but for me it's kinda hard to set up/figure out. I saw your post on talkshopbot with the grinding wheel in a table saw, but i'm not that comfortable with pushing a 3m long angle iron along it..

Thanks and best Regards
K

That table saw experiment was for accurate (cold rolled) flat bar....
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/28/7776.html
......but hot-rolled angle iron is a bit curvy to start with.

The rails were shaped (and drilled) on a milling machine, 200mm at a time - very slow. The whole y-gantry was ground by a lathe re-builder who has a 3.2m long planing grinder. But the x-rails are just a bit too long for him at 3.4m.

I am planning to rig a pair of straight-edges on the table and run a special "gantry" on the straight-edges to grind the x-rails one day. The snag is where to locate/borrow/steal a pair of 4m long straight-edges......?

Very nice work Gerald, Ive read alot of your posts on ShopBots forums also.

Gerald - I'll pick up some of the tyres on the way through Cape Town - I'll be my own freight, But soonest will be next Jan (2007).
:cheers: Jim

The mechanicals have been running for a few months now, and so far so good. Updated photos here: http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/show.c...st=331#POST331

I've had some requests for drawings, but they need to be tidied up a lot.

Thanks for the positive comments guys. Jim, are you still passing through Jan? (Already a bearing company has approached me to make the "tyres" to fit standard bearings - but I couldn't promise volumes)

awsome!