LowRider CNC- Full sheeter

Updates and News
#1

I think You all need to get this song in your ear holes before you go any further, - YouTube

It got its name for a bunch of reasons. First, it is super low profile, like a lowrider that is barely able to get over a speed bump. When you power it down it lowers like it was on hydraulics (not a good feature, but it is there for now). And most importantly, lowriders are custom-built, you can’t buy one complete and call it your own unless you get your hands dirty. You need to build it yourself. When it’s done it may or may not be fast, but it looks good, so cruise it slow and low with pride when you make your cuts.

Okay now here we go. I will fill in details when I’m ready. If mercadolibre was a responsible company, I would have released this a week ago. As it stands, I will wait until I figure out what to do. Gunna have to get a few brave souls to beta test but I will figure that out as the parts start to arrive.

This is by request a full 4’x8’ (or it can go bigger but really??!!) Very loosely based on the Printrbot crawlbot with the CEO Brook Drumm’s permission. As far as I know, I used none of the printrbots parts. I took a look at their pics, made some choices, and designed it all from scratch. If anyone thinks I might be using something of theirs, let me know so I can give them more credit. The crawlbot is a cool machine and a well executed idea.

Price - Just a bit more than the MPCNC. It uses almost all the same parts, I think less printing but requires some CNC’d parts and more belt. Price coming soon. The first run will be limited due to China’s month long vacation. That gives lots of time for a solid beta test.

There are some immediately apparent drawbacks. Visibility of the bit is very minimal, but as most of you know, the sound tells a much better picture anyway. Using the lower friction T8 lead screws means the brass nuts will need to be replaced once in a while and on power off the gantry will lower. There are some workarounds I need to try a bit more, but really a good ending g-code will make it work for now.

Accuracy was spot on in a few trials I have run. Of course, I will be doing many many more before releasing the files.

The lowRider CNC’s first public cruise…

#2

So cool. When are we gonna see some chips fly?

#3

I was test cutting with it and had to clean everything up to make this little vid. I did a faster set of cuts to see if anything got funny and to test out your post processor some more. It went very well. I cut some 50mm squares with a few features in it so I can change speeds and cut it quickly. The first one I popped out was 50.oomm x 50.05mm (with cheapie calipers)…in 1/2" OSB. Running faster than I do on the MPCNC.

I am purposely holding off on too much detail for now. Just in case the whole thing doesn’t work…who knows. I still have not cut a long job or anything too big, or tested to see how fast it can be pushed. I did cut a logo out at 4’ by about 2.5’…I did the order of operations wrong so I had to stop it before it completed.

I’m wondering how it will track on large jobs. I am kinda thinking there should be a lift and drive the full length of the Y axis cut and return to the origin before you start each cut to make sure every cut is good. To clarify if it was to start crooked it would bump of the sides/rails and possibly be off track a tiny bit, but if you drove the length and returned it would pre-bump I think. It’s big, all new issues could happen.

#4

YAAAAS

So awesome and actually pretty clean for such a radical redesign!

#5

Wow!

#6

Unreal. I love the way it works! Can not wait to see how she cuts.
Neil

#7

Dude! That’s freaking cool!

#8

But, can you put an extruder on it and make an actual lowrider?

How am I going to convince my wife that I need this? Any ideas?

#9

I can see I’m eventually going to need a bigger garage… :slight_smile:

#10

Me too, you can see it takes up pretty much all of mine.

Maybe next is the fully automatic table, transforms all the way down to a small pile of wood from the 5x9 table…

#11

Depending on the gcode, your current table can do that!

#12

How much is the movement guided by the workpiece size?

I mean, can we cut <4 ft with this?

Great to see, looks like you changed the game again. Finger crossed it all gets ironed out. I am confident it will.

#13

Barry, I can use use this table and rapidly downsize it for sure. That whole transform back into a table is the hard part.

James, are you asking if we can cut small stuff as well? No doubt, very easily. I have been cutting 50mm squares as testers. Need to find something cool to use as a test part for all the cnc. I end up will all kinds of weird shapes laying around. When I test cut new material. Maybe I will start a collage on the wall with them.

#14

I was just about to start a standard build. If you want I can build this as a beta test. I have a I3 clone and access to cnc mill and lathe.

#15

Will the torsion box table be part of the design? It would be cool to have an extensible torsion box table pattern… Seems like just having interlocking pieces with qvarrying lengths to ensure you can build it from any size CNC would work…

#16

I didn’t use any interlocking pieces. I can put up the dimensions for what I used but no real plans unless I come up with something cool.

Interlocking generally needs the exact same material thickness, and a large enough router to cut them. Without a large cnc it takes a lot of work to get accurate pieces.

I try to build everything as basic as possible to make it as accessible as possible to a wide audience.

#17

Fair enough. I may try to make my own then… So for planning to build this, what should the tickness of the table be?

#18

What I meant was, let’s say I have a 3 ft square sheet, can I use the Lowrider to cut parts from that sheet? Or does the design require a starting workpiece that is 4 ft wide?

#19

3-4", 4" being better, but no more. I used 3.5" and have some nice trim pieces to put on top that are 1/2" thick so I can use 1/2" foam as my spoil board.

#20

Any size will work but you need a little extra width and length.