Here’s a brain dump (by Jared) of various improvements we could make to the ShapeOko CNC Router. Suggestions welcome!
- Get auto-homing to work
- It looks like all of the equipment is there (limit switches on the x & y chassis), just not hooked up for some reason.
- Need to do some investigation to see if anything is broken or missing.
- Add a z-probe! Would take a ton of guesswork out of switching tools mid-cut.
- Looks like you can buy one for cheap, but it also seems like it would be super easy to manufacture from an alligator clip and a thin sheet of aluminum.
- Add a dust shoe to hook up to our dust collection
- We’d probably want to 3D-print something to fit our setup, but here are some images for inspiration.
- Make an enclosure for the whole thing
- Acrylic top & front for viewing, and plywood for the other 3 sides. Some sort of hinge so you can open it up, maybe with a pneumatic arm or something.
- Would be great to reduce the noise & dust
- grbl-controller power to the router
- This would let us turn the router on & off programatically, which would be nice.
- Materials required:
- Some kind of relay (such as this one)
- A power outlet
- Some sort of box to enclose the outlet (can be made from scrap wood)
- Various wires
- Make a box / holder for all of the router bits
- Get a power strip & attach it to the table for easier access
- Fancier pen holder
- I cobbled one together from some plywood to try things out, but it would be great to have a holder with a screw for tightening, that would allow you to switch pens out (and maintain the position of the point) in order to do more complex plots.