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Thread: DIY Smart Saw

  1. #1
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    DIY Smart Saw

    Has anyone saw this. It looks and smells like a scam to me. Like Ted's wood working plans. I tried googling it and everything seems to be self created promotional sites. Here is a dead link to it. As they say if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. I would have put this in CNC forum but they call it a saw.

    diysmartsaw.com/fb/?%3Ftid=main_med_fbk_diysmartsaw

  2. #2
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    Ronald

    No idea if it's some type of a scam,or a legitimate source for just the plans. The skill required to build one would pretty much negate the need to buy the plans.
    Here is link to a video ,in German, for essentially the same setup, and I think one of Bill Hylton's Router books has a similar type setup.
    It's really just an overhead router with a pantograph, or it would get hooked to a CNC computer with the correct bed setup.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b95apXHQjrg
    Last edited by Mike Cutler; 12-03-2016 at 1:32 PM.
    "The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)

  3. #3
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    If it looks like a duck.....................
    I think your sense of smell is dead on.

  4. #4
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    The ultra-long introductory video sure smelled like a scam; HOWEVER, after reviewing a number of sites, I decided to spring for it. It has a very complete set of plans, drawings, and detailed videos of the entire construction process for two sizes of CNC routers. It certainly looks legit. I haven't built it yet and have only finished watching two of the eight construction videos. His construction was not super refined -- circular saw and hand-held drill, etc., and I could imagine seasonal wood movement causing some inaccuracies; but at this point that is just my pessimism showing. I'm planning to follow through and build the thing. Searching the web for "DIY CNC routers", I see some additional ideas utilizing plywood and phenolic that I may incorporate into my construction. If you search the web for "DIY Smart Saw images", you will see quite a bit of detail on the design.

  5. #5
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    Size of work:
    Standard: 5-5/16" high, 15-5/32" wide, 14-41/64" long
    Desktop: 3" high, 7-1/2" wide, 8-1/2" long

    There is nothing I can see from the plans that would prevent easy expansion in any dimension by simply using longer components (rails, tracks, drive screws, etc.); although, in the extreme, one would be concerned about a very wide one requiring stronger/thicker rails to prevent bowing.

  6. Any more information?

  7. #7
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    It will be interesting to see your results and thoughts as you proceed. Are you starting from the same point in terms of woodworking and DIY experience as their target market? One of the impressions I got from looking at the website was they were targeting someone with no woodworking or DIY experience and telling them all they need is the DIY Saw plans and they could build anything. Making the parts on a CNC is one thing, designing them with wood movement etc. and assembling them with glue and clamps is another. I know myself making the parts is only half (often the easiest half) of the battle, glue-up and finishing is often the bigger challenge.

  8. #8
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    I've downloaded and read/watched all of the material. It looks very legit to me. It has very detailed drawings and step-by-step videos of an actual build (I.e., no animation or skipped steps. You get to watch all of the redundant screws driven, albeit with the grace of higher soeed after the first.

    He provides links to a half-dozen very detailed designs that can be run with free public-domain software, but it looks like going from your own designs to G-code (or something like that) that is ready to drive your CNC router/mill (that's what it really is) will likely require several hundred dollars more investment in software -- although there is free software available if you can live within its limitations.

    Woodworking skill level? He uses a hand-held circular saw, cordless drill, and pretty casual measurements with a try square. He does take it to a commercial CNC shop for the large round and square holes, which I think could be chopped out by hand easier than hauling then to the CNC shop.

    CAD Software skill level? I'm an electronics and software engineer. My CAD experience is limited to laying out complex PC boards, but only two-layer, and designing electronics CAD Software. He relies on the tutorials in the CAD packages -- not teaching that part himself. I haven't yet gone through any of the tutorials, but they looked quite extensive. He discusses a couple of CAD packages, and makes recommendations. He does spend a fair amount (a lot, actually) discussing the software that actually drives the machine's three axes --connecting it, troubleshooting it, and the calibration and configuration -- limit switches, velocities, accelerations, etc. Again, he suggests several packages, but focuses on his preferred package, for which the free "demo" version has enough capability for this machine's needs.

    Size: The plans are relatively small for some folk, as mentioned earlier, but can be extended significantly with very little mental effort

  9. #9
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    Agreed. The sanding, assembly/glue-up, finishing, etc. are often much more significant tasks. Based on other technologies, I would suggest that you could probably fabricate three or more from scratch (i.e. no leverage, patterns, duplicates, etc.) for the front-end effort (design, CAD entry, refinement, etc.). The benefit of CNC, in my mind, is in making a lot of repetitive cuts, leveraging parts of designs from other projects or designers, extreme part-to-part consistency (little benefit, except for complex multi-cut patterns), very fine detail beyond the steadiness of my hands, and just for the fun of using new techniques/tools.

  10. #10
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    I don't know anything about available CAD software for woodworking. I know you have to be careful about cutting speed vs cutter diameter, cut depth per pass, registration, tool changes, cut direction vs wood grain, wood hardness, and myriad other topics.

    A good CAD package should handle most of those automatically once constraints are configured, but such packages are usually the expressive ones. I would expect cheap packages to require you to do all that stuff.

    I'll probably start cheap, and then upgrade after I decide which features have value for me.

  11. #11
    There are lots of well-documented opensource CNC designs --- also a couple of books on this, and there's a wiki where some folks (okay, mostly me) have tried to gather pretty much everything which has been made publicly available --- look up "Shapeoko wiki"

    If there's any information in these plans which isn't on that wiki, I'd be curious to know what it is.

  12. #12
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    You can check out fusion 360 and get 2.5D CAM as well built into it. Using LinuxCNC should get you a post processor you can use. If you are making under $100K those options will not cost you any money and are not lacking on any feature you will ever need in a 3 axis router doing 2.5D machining.
    Glad its my shop I am responsible for - I only have to make me happy.

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