Maslow 4 - The next generation of Maslow

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@mooselake

With current feedback you can do homing, you can tell when the infeeding belt stalls, and when you need to let out more belt on the other 3 drives.

Exactly . I’m doing automatic homing and stall detection, but the actual belt lengths are set using the position feedback system from the encoders. Stall detection is just there to shut things down if something goes wrong.

@pdw125

is it going to suit a full 8x4 sheet or is the idea to be closer to 6x3

The goal is to be able to cut the full 4x8. Because the Maslow work area isn’t really a rectangle it’s hard to put a number on the work area size, but the goal is to be able to cut a sheet of plywood in half both hotdog and hamburger style as well as diagonally. I have not actually done that yet, although I have tested the performance near the edges of the sheet and it is dramatically superior to the two chain version. Right now the belt lengths are just computed from the target position, but I would like to add some adaptive behavior to put less tension on the lower belts when cutting high on the sheet and more tension on the lower belts when cutting lower on the sheet which I think will improve performance there even more.

@pdw125

UK availability would be great too - most of the other vendors want a premium to ship outside the US.

UK availability will absolutely be a thing. Having an international community is part of the fun! We won’t charge anything extra to ship internationally above what shipping + tariffs cost us.

@md8n

Are the belts reinforced in some way to mitigate stretching?

Yes, they are Kevlar reinforced. I found the steel reinforced ones still stretched too much

@md8n

Also, any thoughts on supporting a proper spindle instead of “go buy your own router”?

It’s designed pretty much around the Dewalt D611 which I’ve found to be the best compact router out there. The Makita and it’s cheap clones run really hot (like the spindle gets too hot to touch under no load, and that heat transfers into the router bit causing it to wear out more quickly). The D611 is also pretty widely available. A proper spindle would be nice, and I might put together an adapter kit for one if there is enough interest, but I’ve heard pretty mixed reviews about the spindles that are under about $500. Dewalt has done a pretty amazing job of building a good router for the price that is tough to beat…but I’m open to looking at alternatives.

@Alex_Caminade

But it also feels to me that it’s also loosing a bit of the very essence of the project in the way that it seems more complex and less adaptable to everyone’s needs.
For example, how can i use a different motor than the one you are using if all the parts are injection moulded. or in an other way, how can i make a custom set of “pignons” if i don’t have access to a 3D printer ?

That’s a great point. It will always be open source and I plan to sell all the bits independently so you could do a mix and match of just buying the parts that you want for a custom version. That being said, my main goal is to make big CNC routing accessible to as many people as possible, so I think that there are a lot of folks out there who are willing to trade some customization for something which is faster, easier to use, more reliable.

@Alex_Caminade

Oh and just an other question… does this version 4 still have to be tilted or can it be flat ?

Great question. It can be flat or nearly vertical.