I wanted to put an unused RotoZip SS355 into service on my new MPCNC. I haven’t been able to find a tool mount for it and thought I’d design my own. It’s a tool built with excessive style, and has a tapered hand grip and an even more aggressively tapered business end. Just for fun, the tapers aren’t rotationally symmetrical.
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The SS355 does have a depth guide that is bolted on, so I think I can use that to secure the tool in the holder, which is good because the tapers will be working against any clamping I do.
My first thought was to 3D scan the tool with an old XBox Kinect and the ReconstructMe software, but the depth resolution isn’t good enough for the task at hand.
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Next up I’m going to try a more photogrametric approach using Meshroom.
My first thought was to take it apart and see if the internals could be clamped directly, but inside there were a pair of circuit boards and the motor brushes are supported by the casing. It made me sad.
I’ve done my first round of photos for the photogrametry software, but the matte black tool isn’t showing much detail. I am going to dust it with talc to see if that helps. The following link has a decent run down of how to get good results, but I’m not willing to paint the tool.
That looks great! You mentioned downgrading Meshroom; what version are you using? I’ve had some issues with the latest build.
I actually have one of those rotozip ss355s lying around and would be willing to assist in modeling an appropriate mount if you’re still looking for to use this as your spindle.
I’m using 2018.1.0 without any issues. My MPCNC build is waiting for a work table to go on sale at our national disgrace of a hardware chain, and any excuse for me not to model things in Fusion 360 is taken with enthusiasm.
The first thing to do with the mesh is to decimate it a bit. Fusion has a polygon limit with it’s boolean operations and this file has many many more polygons than the limit. The files are too big to attach here, I can email them or share them on Google drive (or Thingiverse?) if you’re interested.
Thanks for sharing the scans! I’ll try 2018.1.0, but it would probably take some time to get anything that good. Email works for me
I work mostly in Rhino and MOI3d (which are cross compatible), and Rhino can open almost anything so you may not have to decimate the mesh too much. I still haven’t needed to try Fusion, although it’s got a lot of stuff built in that looks pretty good, but I really don’t want to learn another 3d program.
I hear you on the hardware chains - we’re pretty much down to home depot and lowes here in Austin. I’m thinking of using an IKEA tabletop and designing my own legs, but haven’t gotten that far yet…
Thanks to Edward’s scan I’ve been able to make quite a bit of progress on the lower mount.
I started by making a part to fit into the depth gauge slot, then overlaid it with some basic geometry based on measurements of the rotozip.
Next I dropped Edward’s scanned model into the part, and used Boolean operations to check for collisions and get a better idea of what fit and what didn’t. After several tweaks and revisions the fit is close enough to add the mounting components (based mainly on the standard Dewalt 660 mount) and test a mountable version.
I’m no engineer so I’m trying multiple approaches to make sure the tool is correctly aligned and stable with the idea that one of them will eventually work best.
There’s still more to do, but I’m pretty excited that it can now be attached to the tool mount.
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I’ve sent Edward files to test with his RotoZip. If anyone sees anything that could be improved, I’d love to hear it.
Edward and I have both test mounted our Rotozips and the fits seem secure enough to mount the tools for testing. I haven’t milled anything yet, but will be trying it out in foam and then in wood as soon as I finalize the wiring on my machine. I’m really excited to see what it can do. I’ve have a lot of fun collaborating on this one. At this point, I’m turning the thread back over to Edward, without whose help I don’t think this would have been possible. [attachment file=“Test Mount.jpg”]
Since this rotary saw seems to be the only one carried in stock at any of the local Lowe’s or Home Depot stores, I’ll likely be the third to use it. Thanks for all the effort you put into this project.
