Next version of the maslow idea? an m8

[RandomDave]

@wouldchuck

4. The most useful thing I have learned so far from playing with this is that the maslow arms could be taken off the spindle and as long as they are still free to rotate around that central point they could be moved out from the center and the machine wouldn’t notice much (other than the clever math that corrects for the different heights of the arms) . Looking back at the original maslow designs this was accomplished by using a steel ring with pulleys riding along it. In Maslow4 the spools rotate around the router body. For playing with my own machine then I could see putting a plastic or metal ring in place of the arm on the stack and then moving the motor out from the center along a rope. I don’t know why I would want to do this but it would work.

Ahem, soooooooooo I have been quietly playing around with this idea in the background of the other stuff I’ve been doing, for like…months, I was going to test it a bit more before I talked about it, buuuuut:

The main advantages:

• With some clever geometry you can get the attachment points all the same height.
• You can get a sub-5kg assembly.
• You can fit a Makita router easily.
• I think all these mean you could run a higher speed lower torque set of motors and push feedrates higher: (hence this thread: Feedrate limits of the Maslow (theoretical).

However.

(And this is why I hadn’t posted it yet)
I’ve only tried it with 2.5m leads, and I am not sure how 5+ metre leads would work, which is what you’d need for a full sheet. Voltage drop and interference could well scupper the whole thing.

I’ll get off my backside and actually write up what I have so far later.