table saw obsolescence

And THAT machine could not do ANYTHING you would typically do on a table saw.

And nor would that one!!.

We are talking about machines like this!!!

or the RC8 shown here -:

Note the price is well north of 15 Gs.

Either of these can take the place of

- the loaded professional cabinet version for about $4475 Canadian converted to 220 volt..

And just look at the difference in real estate eaten up by the different options. I don't have 35 square feet of space to dedicate to a tool that is not utilized full time!!! - even if I DID have the spare "bread" to buy it.

Probably the most popular starter 'size" CNC for the hobbyist is the 6040:

I believe _most_ 6040's will rout/engrave both wood and thin metal.

I helped a friend setup one a few years ago. We used an old PC with a parallel port (LPT) running Windows XP, installed Mach3 software from here:

He quickly got frustrated trying to learn G-code and his CNC has been collecting dust in is shop ever since. ;-)

I know you're not very bright but you really don't have to prov it.

If everyone ignores him, I'm game too.

No, *you* are talking about machines like that.

I was simply po "These things are very expensive, and if this definition is correct out of the budget of the average wood worker.

Could some one provide a definition of CNC as has been used in this thread?"

There actually are CNC machines for woodworkers that fit our budgets.

BTW...what's with the 3 exclamation points? Did you keyboard stutter?

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

That "reasonable" isn't. You'll run out of space in that work area, (5.1'' * 3.9'' * 1.6''), before you got done securing anything. Even model railroad work in N-scale (1:160) needs more space!

Work area and rigidity are two of the most important parts of CNC machines. IMO, anything smaller than a Taig is just going to be too small. That still won't even come close to replacing your TS.

Puckdropper

Keith was wondering how CNC applied to the thread. If I'm not mistaken the "thread" is about (or has morphed to) "cnc machines" making "table saws" obsolete. None of the "toys" referenced stand a chance of replacing a table saw for any meaningfull type of work, if any at all. An aquaintance has one we used to make a couple of crokinole boards a couple years ago, and we were pretty well at the limit size wize for his machine (which is largere than any of those shown). It also did a good job of making the moldings around the openings (hatches) in a lake kayak out of oak and teak. None of these jobs would have been candidates for a table saw

Spalted Walt wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

G1 X3Y0 G1 X4 G1 X3Y2 G1 Y0

G-code? What's that? ;-)

Your friend might be interested in software like CamBam. It does a fine job of abstracting away the G-code, so you draw your objects then tell CamBam what machining operations to do and it spits out the relavent G- code.

I only know enough G-code to move the machine in straight lines and to use "canned" drilling cycles. It's handy when you're drilling a bunch of repetitive holes. I recognize G3 and IJK, just don't know what it's doing. The CAM software abstracts all that away. It's probably just as fast for me to draw the curve in CAM and convert that to G-code as it is for me to look up the docs and figure out how to express that curve mathematically so the machine can handle it.

Puckdropper

There are several free small G-code demo files donated by some forum memebers here:

The first post has a file 'Demo Gcode.zip' which contains several G-code examples. 'Scorpion.tap' ran/worked great on my friend's CNC without modification using Mach3 software. All the G-code files in the .zip are merely text files with .tap or .nc extensions. They can be opened viewed/edited/saved with Notepad, Wordpad, Vi etc.

there is a trend in the direction

for a wood shop with employees a cnc would look really good

cnc lowers the chance of injury dramatically

shop injuries are tramatic experience for everyone not just the injured employee

If someone told me 10 years ago there would be driverless cars on the highway, it would have been met with total disbelief on my part...

I highly doubt that I'll ever own a "driverless car" but there is about 100x the chance that I will (own a driverless car) than a CNC that would replace my table saw. Not going to happen.

snipped-for-privacy@notreal.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I've got all these neat power saws in my shop, but last night I choose the manual one. New tools probably won't replace the old ones, they'll be added to the arsenal so we can choose the right one for the job.

I bet the power saws were sold as replacing manual saws when they first came out.

Puckdropper

No doubt but I don't see your point. Are you saying that you think that a CNC machine will displace the table saw? In our lifetimes?

snipped-for-privacy@notreal.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

CNC machines will supplement the table saw. They'll offer another way to make the same cuts, a unique way to make different cuts, and won't be able to make come of the other cuts a TS can do.

Puckdropper

Not buying it. Not a rotary tool CNC machine, anyway, and not in a home shop.

snipped-for-privacy@notreal.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I did some tests with finger joints on my CNC router and they turned out quite nicely. I just got distracted with other problems before I finished the case I was building. In that case, I used the TS to cut the wood to size, planer to give it a decent finish and parallel edges, and CNC router to do the end cuts.

I may have been better off cutting the entire piece on the CNC, but the important part was the finger joints.

Puckdropper

One of the real problems - there are many versions of G-Code languages. It allows for extensions and many just use them and change the code.

The company thought is to trap more business in training and keep you in their machine. I think it did the opposite.

Mart> Puckdr>

And with the right jig, you could have made the finger joints on the table saw just as well. Would have taken a bit longer though - and there are fancy box joints that would be almost impossible to do on the table saw - and the CNC doing the job of the planer would have been PAINFULLY slow!!

And how does it handle an 8x4 foot sheet of ply which a few hundred dollar table saw can.