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Portable CNC - Leaving the workbench behind

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ScaleBirdsScott

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
1,745
Location
Uncasville, CT
Came across this just now reading one of the blogs in my daily rotation:

http://www.core77.com/projects/6963...-Materials-to-Help-Produce-Grid-Beam-Projects

And thought it might be a neat method to make it easy to feed a chunk of L-angle or square tube into a machine and have it drill a repetitive series of holes for riveting longerons or spar caps or some other such thing.

It's maybe not exactly the most cost-efficient or time-efficient unless one has a project with an obscene amount of such work to do, but maybe if its original purpose - to drill random wood into viable "gridbeam" units as a sort of low-cost 80/20 - is appealing to you, then let this thread serve as one example of how it could be used beyond the original scope.

Could this tool also be useful for profiling or pocketing long boards? Maybe some wooden I-beams? Who knows.

It's another example of the increase in more custom form-factors in CNC, going beyond just a big machine station and expanding into portable tools. I predict in a few years we'll start seeing CNC type motion control tools in more niche roles, potentially even seeing such tools in Home Depot. They already have Ryobi battery powered hot-glue-guns and Milwaukee mini vacuums that use the same battery pack as your impact driver. Why not start adding microcontrollers and tiny stepper motors that can be programmed via a slick Android app?

Also there's the Goliath, which is another case where you will no longer need big tools or a lot of space to cut a 4x8 sheet of plywood down into various rib shapes. This little guy will just drive around like an RC car, happily cutting away where needed. No large table, nothing taking up room, but when a sheet does need to be cut, you can get accurate and detailed results.
 
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