I chose the maslow because it fits in perfectly with my other gear.
A lot of the time I need I need to cut template shapes and the maslow will do this well relatively quickly.
While the cutting speed is not fast the setup time is.
My new cnc table has a cutting area of 1300mm*2500mm and cost $24,000 for the table without the hypermax 125 plasma cutter or 3.5Kw water cooled spindle. It was just under 50k all in. Now this will cut steel up to 35mm, route wood up to 150mm or engrave.
The down side is it takes a few hours to reconfigure from wood to steel. Not only does the z axis need changing but the water table needs to be swapped for the vac table.
Thats where the maslow comes into its own
Put it another way.
I have a Milwaukee grinder I use for bigger jobs.
I also have collection ozito battery grinders and a bunch of older corded ones.
Now I can have separate grinders for cutting disks, grinding disks and a flapper all within reach. They do the same job as the Milwaukee just a bit slower but I dont need to change disks all the time. If they die within 3 years I get replacement for nothing.
So each has it place. The only real questions ire you justify it and do you have the space?
So yeah a maslow is just as useful and has a place next to a 50k machine
oh yeah I get you, horses for courses and all that jazz
I will have to make some room in the 3 bay shed but it should fit nicely next to the workbench given that it’s upright.
I’ve only ever worked near to the bigger industrial machinery so I’ve never considered even having the space for one let alone considered that kind of machinery cost as an option
my next buy will probably be a nice cutting table, that’s about all the space i’ll have room for machinery in the workshop. I’ll probably make some kind of a rack for storing the ply sheets upright and move the drill press to somewhere easily accessible. Will be good to get the setup all done to get started on some of these nice ply projects soon.
Made some brackets for the top motor mounts and been working on a sled in solidworks.
I had some linear slides hanging around and am going to use 3 of them for the Maslow
2 slides sit on the top rail and will be connected to a single stepper driver board.
This will allow me to move the sprocket in and out from the frame.
The plan is to build a simple 555 timer circuit to drive the steppers. Ill place a direction and move switches on the back of the frame.
Been looking at routers and have decided not to use one and go for a spindle instead. The main reason is I had a linear slide and spindle on hand. Im happier with a spindle over a router as the router will have a lot of bearing slop fairly quickly.
The next part will to be to cut a sled on the plasma table. Going to cut a pair of half circles from 10mm steel. This will be the same design as the sled base more or less cut in half. The base will be a 460mm diameter disk made from film faced form ply. That will keep the lower surface slippery.
The half steel ring will add about 6kg so hoping there will be no need for the bricks. If I need more weight will add another steel ring. This will also keep the CG below the bit.