Rotary Cutter: Software, pictures, and documents to use a cutter controlled by a stepper motor

Overview...This program converts an sbp file to a format that can be used to control the rotation of a stepper motor holding a cutter. The rotation angle is added as a B-axis move, so if the stepper is connected to a B-axis driver a cutter will rotate so that it's always inline with the direction of the cut. It can be used to cut materials like cloth, rubber, cardboard, etc.
 
Notes... This will only work with files that contain M and J commands and NOT files that contain circle commands like CG...they will generate an error so don't use any of the "arc" post processors. The instructions are for files generated with PartWizard, but in my limited tests it works with PartWorks files just fine. There are some images of applications, documents, and test files in the zip file as well for inspiration.

Contact info...Bill Young

Download size...1.8 megs

Project Type...Part File Utility

Additional equipment/software required...A stepper motor (usually placed in the router mount) and some sort of blade holder

Special instructions...Download the zip file from the link below and unzip it. You can put this file anywhere that you want...it doesn't need any other files

Known Issues...None, but as usual double-check the output files just in case.

Confidence...

Completeness...

Download the Rotary Cutter
 



Confidence is a measure of how far along a project is in the opinion of the person that created it. If it only has 1 star then it's very rough, more likely to not work than to work correctly. 4 stars means that they think it's ready for prime time and just needs a little more feedback or testing. A 5 means that it's all done...you won't see any "5 star" projects in ShopBot Labs because at that point it's ready for release!

Completeness really goes hand in hand with Confidence and is the measure of how complete they feel the Project download is. It could include important things like if there are instructions or help files available, but also might reflect if there are sample files or even simple things like a lack of icons or graphics.