Eric, The automatically indexing handibot would still do its work in tiles. The idea behind the longer handibot is to use an inexpensive, lower quality drive system for the gross movements (it would be good enough even if it only had a 1" resolution!) and then to use the much more precise, lead screw drive for actual cutting. The problem that we often face is that something like rack aby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
RS, Yes! Still trying for a december release...LATE december. I just finished another prototype of it last night--trying to address what some people had commented on here about the need for a better way to manually index. It'll be easier to show in video than to explain...so I'll try to get something up by the end of the week. This thread plus the one about cutting on a 4 xby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Well--the power supply can be plugged into a 220 source and will automatically switch. The only changes we have to make for international handibots is swapping in a 220 router and giving them the appropriate power cable for their country. Of course, that'd make your handibot a lot less portable if you had to plug it into a 220 outlet whenever you wanted to use it...but you could still swby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Hmm...too bad about that shift in the X between passes on the jig. I was thinking about this last night and thought it might be helpful to scribe a line on your board at the X start point of your tiling job. Use a square to extend it the whole width of the board--that way when you return to start your next row of tiling, you at least know that the first cut is lined up in the X...by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
RS, What's an "x-carve"? Some kind of fancy chisel? The relay in the handibot can switch 400VAC at 20A. It just receives a 24VDC pulse from the control board and allows the power from your wall outlet to pass through to the router connector. The cable running to the router is rated for 600VAC. You'd just need to build yourself a new router bracket--somethiby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
By the way--we're trying to figure out what's up with attachments on this forum...Hopefully we can get that fixed soon so people can actually share all of the cool stuff that they're working on!!by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Glad you're enjoying it! If you're feeling adventurous--take a look at some of the other apps that we've been working on: just download the .fma file and install from the dashboard. I've been having fun with the fabmo-graph app lately:by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Amazing work Collin! We're all discussing this here at hq-- It would definitely be great to improve reception--I tend to run in AP mode in my shop at home as well for signal reasons. Thanks for opening up this discussion!by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Collin, using a handibot 1, you're also facing the extra challenge of communicating wirelessly with a card enclosed in a metal case (the handibot 2 has a clear acrylic electronics enclosure). To overcome this, your card included that extra antenna. You might try moving the antenna to another location on the tool and seeing if that helps with your signal. Brianby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Very cool Steve! Also--I learned something new from your solution to the warped board! Nice shop also. Have you done any full plywood sheet projects yet?by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Mark, There are only 2 screws that need to be removed in order to take the stop off the back and slide the handibot frame off of its base. Then four screws to remove the Y motor...the trick is going to be finding a way to make the motor removable without too much headache. I feel like I want to put a plug-able connector on the Y axis cable and just let the motor switch be a matter of unpluby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Sylvia, If you're seeing the position listed in mm then it sounds like everything is set up correctly. Just wanted to make sure. Once you've run the X,Y zeroing routine (this is run from the "Cuts" menu) you shouldn't need to zero the axes between cuts. From your description of pressing the X Y zero button between cuts it sounds like that may be re-setting wby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Silvia, The home position of the tool persists between jobs. Even if it is way off on the other side of the cut area, it will return to it's 0,0 location to start a new job. You don't have to move it back home before starting the next cut. Looking at your cut file, everything looks fine...but since you're working in mm I wanted to make sure that your tool was set to run inby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Well, we purchase ours from a local company called Sabic...however they only sell in full 5' x 10' sheets. To get individual small sheets, I've used the inventables store in the past:by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Silvia, That does sound like an alignment issue with your motors. We've got a couple of quick guides for tweaking motor alignment up on our docs page here: I think that these will help! Brianby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Silvia, The position of the cut should definitely be repeatable--stopping in the middle of a cut should have no effect on the home position of the tool...so something definitely isn't working correctly. First, which generation of handibot are you using? Is it the new Version 2.0 with the wifi "FabMo" controller or the earlier version with the ShopBot 3 control software?by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Testing out a new design today. This one is built on top of off the shelf extrusion with all custom parts made from HDPE (this should bring the cost down and also make the design flexible if we want to offer it in multiple lengths...12, 16, 24, etc...) I don't have the right length rails yet so it still has limited travel, but I'm testing out the manual style tiling by cutting all acceby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Mike, Hopefully you'll see the other thread that I just posted about getting your tool online--but just in case, check out the doc at the top of our support page for instructions to work around a recent bug that we've encountered: Also, Ted built a custom set of macros for handibot 1 owners but they may need to be re-loaded on your fabmo card once you update to the most reby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Last week, we discovered that our tools here were suddenly having problems getting on the network. It seemed like pressing the "connect" button wasn't doing anything and then we'd get an error. The weird thing was, it was happening in every browser, with every tool, no matter which version of the FabMo software we tried. We've been trying to track down the source of the eby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
That's true Mark...glad to know its not just me who finds that his "big" parts are usually just long. I've made a number of things on long handibots with no tiling at all.by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
The handibot will still be sold in its standard 8" length. The V2 was designed to make it easier to remove the base and Y motor just for that purpose. We're going to start out with a 24" long handibot that will give you the ability to cut up a 2' x 4' piece of plywood with a lot less tiling effort than is currently required with the large material jig (8 tiles versus 24 tby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Just put together a video from our trip to Maker Faire covering some of the interesting hints I saw there!by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Alright Mike, yours should have reached you by now! (I held it back for a couple days to see if we might be releasing a new software version that you'd want delivered on the card). Let us know how it goes!by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Butch, That depends on how you want to design parts for your handibot. You'll definitely want the ability to use a mouse sometimes for the really detailed stuff. vCarve is not very graphics intensive and will run on any computer you could buy today. Fusion 360 (for high end 3D modelling) will put a little more load on your system...it is doing much of its work in the cloud though so itby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Afternoon everyone! I've gotten a lot of requests to create a version of our pen holder that will work with v1.1 and earlier handibots. So, I just put one up in the store here:by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
The handibot version is identical to the shopbot version so you should be fine. I've put a more up to date post processor online here for download:by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
The bit is that tapered 1/8" ball nose--which is just the longest, thinnest bit I have on hand. I set it to cut 1.5" deep. In the past I've done these on an indexer but I realized that if I chose my pumpkin carefully and used a really long bit I wouldn't have to spin the pumpkin during cutting.by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
RS, looks like that comma in the "PAUSE,2" line is what is causing the problem. Not that you should ever have to worry about this...but the syntax for a pause is just PAUSE and the number--so in this case "PAUSE 2" When I tried processing it in my copy of vcarve it didn't put that comma in there. I'll track down the correct postprocessor and put it up onlinby Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
I had some folks over for dinner last night and decided to rope them into helping me decorate for halloween by designing and carving some pumpkins with my handibot! I put together a quick video of the project here:by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum
Morning everyone! Ted has been working really hard over the past few weeks to document and assemble some FabMo upgrade kits for early model handibots. We've got them up in the store here: We'll also be providing a $50 rebate to people who want to return their old control cards after getting familiar with the new FabMo system.by Brian Owen, ShopBot - Handibot Forum