rp1007 wrote:
I wonder whether there’s some trick that you could do messing with the belt
path so the belt attachment/pivot point is all the way next to the router
rather than constrained to the outside of the rings.
what do you mean? one thing that Bar has said is that the arms are not going to
be moving up and down with the router on this version. That will eliminate a
significant source of error.
David Lang
So this is all just fun speculation until we see some real prototypes. but one of the unexpected things about the Maslow 4 for me was that the drive motors don’t pull directly on the belts. they pull on the spools which wind the belts up. That means there is another point of failure where the spool teeth can break. I could see playing with a direct motor to belt drive and maybe even throwing the encoder on there as a way to reduce parts. Parts and engineering already exist for machine belt drive gears so it could also make more off the shelf parts available.
Two other thoughts are that encoders don’t need 360 degrees of spin around the spindle. They are already limited so you could possibly work with just four 90 degree bits of track or rotation for each one.
Also when you pull belt in on one side you are extending on the other, I could see playing with a system that just stores a little slack in the machine that is the difference between the opposite diagonal belts. Probably messy but it could be fun
I kinda want to see people’s sketches of what a fast fun mini Maslow might look like.
wouldchuck wrote:
So this is all just fun speculation until we see some real prototypes. but
one of the unexpected things about the Maslow 4 for me was that the drive
motors don’t pull directly on the belts. they pull on the spools which wind
the belts up. That means there is another point of failure where the spool
teeth can break. I could see playing with a direct motor to belt drive and
maybe even throwing the encoder on there as a way to reduce parts. Parts and
engineering already exist for machine belt drive gears so it could also make
more off the shelf parts available.
the problem is that you then need some other mechism to provide the tension on
the spools to take up the belt slack.
the ~8:1 reduction from the drive motor to the belt movement also helps
Two other thoughts are that encoders don’t need 360 degrees of spin around the
spindle. They are already limited so you could possibly work with just four 90
degree bits of track or rotation for each one.
the maslows currently are limited to ~50 degrees of movement and that causes
problems in the corners. they don’t need 360 movement, but it would be good if
they could cross over the top/bottom to have two 140 degree tracks.
Also when you pull belt in on one side you are extending on the other, I could
see playing with a system that just stores a little slack in the machine that
is the difference between the opposite diagonal belts. Probably messy but it
could be fun
let’s say your frame is 8x10’, in the center, corner/sled/corner is 12.8 ft, in
the corner, it is 9.2 for one belt and 6.1 for the other, or 15.3 ft so you have
2.5’ of slack to handle.
David Lang
Since the belt and the drive gears are acting at the same radius is there any mechanical advantage there? The gear on the spool and the belt move at the same speed along side each other. I know there is a gear box on the motor but I would keep that.
So I already like how simple and how few parts the maslow has. if one was redesigning it what are the failure points? are they expensive or difficult to source? Belts break. Belts are easy to buy. Spool gears get stripped. There is only one limited source for those. Idler plastic gears break if the belt gets tangled. They can be printed? I have seen the idler gear axle fixes on the forums. Clamps fail, You can print better ones. I am right now buying a few more spools. Computer board is unique.
When redesigning the maslow How do we increase reliability and reparability?
good point
David Lang
Blockquote
and for an arm
the only question is if this is rigid enough or if it would need a lip on the bottom of the spool and a second big ring or just the small cap
It does seem that the belts would pull offset from the center of the maslow at a tangent to the spool and that would change with how much was wound on. Seems like the math and control would get more difficult with four at varying angles and varying offsets? I like the design of a thin encoder layer. Where would the motors go?
I live in a 670 square foot condo. I take the Maslow to the place where I’ll be using it (usually, the theater or school) and build the/a frame there.
My workshop is practically outdoors, so portability is essential for me
Thought for future design. Would it be possible to add a USBc or Ethernet port so one could hardwire into the Web interface? A lot of problems come from connectivity. I know we have discussed a better antenna.
There already is a USB C port which can be used to control the machine, but I think that better support for making that easy to do could be nice.
I’ve also been thinking about making an IOS/Android app which would use bluetooth to control the machine. Wifi can be a bit finicky. The board already has bluetooth support built in so it would be a firmware update.
wouldchuck wrote:
Thought for future design. Would it be possible to add a USBc or Ethernet port
so one could hardwire into the Web interface? A lot of problems come from
connectivity. I know we have discussed a better antenna.
I created add the ability to use usb for control · Issue #982 · MaslowCNC/Maslow_4 · GitHub to explore the
options for using the usbc
David Lang
Bar wrote:
I’ve also been thinking about making an IOS/Android app which would use bluetooth to control the machine. Wifi can be a bit finicky. The board already has bluetooth support built in so it would be a firmware update.
I created [WIP] Add ability to use Bluetooth for ESP32 communication by Copilot · Pull Request #985 · MaslowCNC/Maslow_4 · GitHub to add bluetooth
capability
David Lang
So this would be like a port of the website based control? I really value that Maslow doesn’t require an app and can run on any local device.
Yeah, the website control would be exactly the way it is now, we would just also have the option to control the machine by an app if you wanted to.
It just requires building the app which is a bit of work.
I am really excited about this news. You and I have emailed about my inability to get 4.1 operational consistently. I have been given the approval from my family budget director (spouse) to purchase a new CNC router in the fall. Please keep me posted. I have close to a year invested in learning how to use the surface style CNC and I think this new product may be what fits me. I am hesitant to invest time to learn the ins and outs of a gantry style Longmill 3.0. My projects are garden trellises so I would have to master the tiling technique since the Longmill frame is 48"x30"
I am super stoked and hope that timing works out. The small bit size is not an issue for me.
