Michael Rechtin discovered himself needing a fairly fancy piece of apparatus as a way to make difficult shapes out of froth for RC Airplanes. What he wanted was a CNC foam cutter that makes use of sizzling wire to slice by way of foam easily. Not solely that, he wanted it to be 4 axis so he may get the proper geometry for wings. As a substitute of going out and shopping for a really costly system, he cobbled one collectively comparatively low-cost.
A lot of the system is 3D printed, such because the bushings and brackets. Most of the components, just like the threaded rod he makes use of could be bought at your typical “large field” retailer.
The brains of this beast are an Arduino Mega and a plain previous RAMPS board, very like 3D printers you’ve seen constructed for a few years. In comparison with a 3D printer, sizzling foam cutters are comparatively low-cost. You simply have to provide sufficient energy to make the wire sizzling, and have some primary movement management. You’ll be able to truly eyeball your speeds fairly nicely.
