A Foam Cutting Machine by Tom McWire

This instructable is currently under construction. If you see something missing feel free to comment. Just keep in mind, It's not ready for prime time.
   Use your computer to cut shapes out of foam plastic sheets.

If you have ever thought about using your computer to design and create your project ideas then take a look at this Foam Cutting Machine.  It can cut patterns out of Styrofoam or other soft materials that are up to 3/8 inch thick. You may have seen some machines that would cut shapes out of thin materials such as paper or vinyl. Although these machines can be useful for creating decorative greeting cards, scrap book pages and signage, it is difficult to make something that will stand on its own two feet. On the other hand 3D printers are all the rage these days, extruding hot plastic in layer to form small objects. These 3D printers are coming down in price but still quite an investment.
  This foam cutting machine project focuses on using Styrofoam as a medium. Styrofoam is not as heavy as wood or aluminum but you will see that it can do some very interesting things. 
 This machine is able to cut shapes out of 1/4 inch extruded polystyrene sheets that you can find at most building supply stores (sometimes called fan fold). It can also cut craft foams and other materials of similar density that you can find at hobby stores. As you will see, even though the machine is fairly inexpensive it can repeatably produce shapes with enough precision to fit tightly together or join in different ways to form all kinds of objects.

 This is a big project with many parts. Skip around if you like and pick out what you would like to do first.
  The basic sections are:
    The Cutting Head needle, fly wheel, motor,  and catch
    The Stepper motor movements X and Y axis
    The Electronic motor drives and computer interface
    The Software

Step 1 Overview

  Here's an overview of the project. The pictures here don't show the electronics but I promise it will be included by the end of the instructable. Note: in the second picture the arrows show the X, Y, and Z directions. This will be referred to many times in the following pages. The big stepper motor(upper left) drives the X stage movement. The aluminum rail across the top is the X rail. The Smaller Stepper motor (top) is part of the X stage and drives the Y stage movement. The cutting head rides on the Y stage. The green acrylic plate is mounted at a right angle to the Y stage and is called the Z stage. The Z movement is basically the action of the needle going in and out and perforating the material.

Comments

[bekiralkanat]

Would you say you sell a very good working

[johnnie_w2]

Neat design, but the pdf file does not open after downloading

[Tom McWire]

Just testing here to see if comments work for private instructables.