Here it is, the Skibuilder's CNC. I haven't said much about it since I wanted to get it running first. I cut the first bases out tonight and it works great. I still need to clean up some wiring and hook up the dust collector.
It is an older shopbot PR96 cnc and the rails, motors, and controllers, were given to us. I had the table built by a local machinist. It took a while to get up and running since I built a enclosed room to keep the noise and dust down. It is an interesting design since it uses standard unistrut and v-bearings as linear slide elements. I was a bit skeptical, but it seems to work. X and Y axes are rack and pinion, while the Z axis is ball screw.
Shopbot uses its own control boards, software and shopbot language. However, it can convert standard g-code into shopbot code.
Anyways, here are some pictures and a couple of videos.
CNC in its own room, complete with observation window.
this is so sick! i`d give a lot to get such a monstrous cnc saw the pics of the frame earlier in the gallery and then already thought - that`s going to be a cnc! awesome
realy awsome, i already have the aluminium frame to build my, but still on impasse to get shure to buy some linear guidelines, or do something like you do with some bearings, i already test my motors and software, everithing works great,
Hello, I am new to this site. I worked at Volant way back in the day. I was the first grunt employees. Now I live in Raleigh NC. I am helping my friend Steve Link out with the reestablishment of his snowboard company Summit Snowboards of Colorado. He invented the PTEX side wall. I want to know if there is a market for ptex side wall wood cores. I am associated with Hasty Ply Wood. http://www.hasply.com
OK, Now you've gone too far! Taking all the fun out of the home ski building! So much for the errant knife cuts and small gaps in the edge to base...... I think it is time to hang up the materials and all...
Really nice work! Can I try it? Maybe I should have payed closer attention while I was in school so I too could be a master of the ski building!
rockaukum
I'm not sure if anyone is interested but my dad has BobCad software V20 and V21 he's looking to sell, he uses a different program to run his CNC. I"m not sure what he is asking but there is a $75 fee to register the software. I guess send me a PM if you are interested and i will find out more details and what exactly is included.
I played around with a trial version of TurboCad a few months ago and found I could design/draw a ski really fast (about 3 minutes), but I couldn't get rid of straight line segments in the arcs, ie., I couldn't get a true circular arc. I'm hoping that it was just a problem with the trial program because I think I'm going to spring for the real version and hope it works. The ski and snowboard programs that Dan Graf and Dante have created are really great, but I'm sure that I'll be wanting to add a bunch of other CAD drawn stuff to my ski designs, so it might be best to just start out with a regular CAD program. I ordered and received a SolidWorks CD, but it wouldn't load. I've called SolidWorks for help a number of times, and they just sorta blow me off... so no actual experience with that program.
I haven't said much about it since I wanted to get it running first. I cut the first bases out tonight and it works great. I still need to clean up some wiring and hook up the dust collector. 
saw the pics of the frame earlier in the gallery and then already thought - that`s going to be a cnc! 