I am looking to do strait cuts on mat board and foam core as well as more decorative cuts. Is there anywhere to get a Tangential Oscillating Knife System for the Shapeoko XL and have the system use it properly, turning the knife blade automatically for intricate cuts as opposed to dragging it as well as lifting at corners to get precise 90 degree cuts and not rounded edges like a drag knife would do?
I don’t believe this would track in the same way as a properly set up drag knife and matching toolpath (we discussed it a bit on the team chat) — if you had an additional axis and could work up code to use it to rotate the knife it should work.
Thanks for your reply. Is there a g code software that could create and send this? Also is there an attachment for this or a place I can buy one that would work with this machine?
No one has done this yet that I know of — it would be a neat tooling option.
If I figure something out I’ll post to the forum. I’m new to Cnc as well, but in theory if I can find a tangential knife system that can attach to the shapeoko and a software to create the g code,
Would carbide motion be able to send it all properly to the machine? Or is carbide motion limited in a way that wouldn’t allow that type of g code to work?
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This is a big project — my understanding is you would need to:
- replace the electronics with a controller which has a 4th axis
- work up the hardware and mechanism and electronics to mount the knife and rotate it
- work up software which would then manage the rotation and orientation of the knife as it cuts
just to throw my hat in here as well but I’d be willing to throw resources at this (in terms of money, not skill as I have none of the latter to make this work, but enough of the former to see it through) and would use this tool a ton to make it worth it. A Timely post.
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