Stepping into the 1990's

[Martin Wasner]

You'll just have to pick up whatever you're reading this on and turn it sideways for some of the pictures I guess.

Welp, I pulled the trigger on a router.

Weeke Vantech 480

I bought it from a shop auction in South Dakota. The owner was retiring. I wasn't planning on purchasing much else this year. It has been an exceptional year business wise, and I had already pumped probably $50k into equipment, so I wasn't looking to spend much more. I had to borrow, and I hate borrowing money.

Dust collection will be handled by a 7.5hp Oneida cyclone that showed up the other day.

Day of the auction.



The day the riggers came to pick it up about two weeks later.



The riggers had this trailer that was pretty cool. It was on hydraulics and could be raised, lowered and tilted. They picked up the back of the trailer, set it on the dock door, and just we just rolled the machine on skates out onto the deck. Pretty darn slick.



On the trailer



Tilting the trailer to get the fork truck back on.



Orion Rigging out of Sioux Falls South Dakota did the move.


Set in place, and leveled out. Hopefully spot on leveled out.


Panels bolted back on.

[Martin Wasner]

Some of my pictures are out of order. Pretend they're in order.

The riggers got to the shop fairly late. I just had them drop the trailer in the shop, so they could unhook and take the tractor to go get a hotel room.



More "in place" pictures, I finally got the pumps off the table and hooked up behind it.



Things are a little snug behind the Streibig, but close isn't touching.



More in place. My dog is in a cone since she decided to get a seed lodged under her eyelid and scratched the heck out of her eye.



Eight tool rests. But there's places to bolt more on. I'm going to ask the tech what it takes to be able to use these other spots. For the most part, we should be fine with eight, but handling tool holders is a pain and a waste of time.



The router I was looking at before I bought this one had a 5x7 drill block. I think this'll be fine, but I'm not thrilled about it.



This morning I got the blessing to turn the power on from the tech. My electrician buddy and I were at the shop until about 8:30 last night slinging pipe and pulling wire. We pulled a 50 amp circuit for the router, and a 20 amp circuit for the dust collector.



I'm not too far away from it being physically ready to run, but I'm a ways off on the software side. I'm switching cad programs. I've been on Cabnetware for over ten years. With the router I'll be switching to Mozaik. It's been a tough slog working my way through it, but I'm getting much more proficient at drawing. The tough stuff is still coming getting all of the parameters set up correctly and getting the parametrics sorted out so it tells the router what to do properly.

I still need to hook up compressed air, and get the dust collector mounted. The compressed air is simple, there's a 3/4" line dead ending at the machine. I just need to run to Fastenal one of these days and grab some parts.

The dust collector requires some figurin' My plan is to make a bridge with pallet racking and mount it as high as it will go. Two reasons to jack it up to the ceiling. First I want the run of pipe to be as straight as possible. I have plenty of dust collector, but want to keep it as straight as possible. I also want the ball for the flex pipe to be as far from the gantry as possible to make the angles pulling on it as low as possible. The second reason is I just don't have a good spot to put it on the floor. Lifting it up will give me some different options too for a collection bin. I might have somebody weld me up a box I can nab with the forklift to empty. I hate lifting barrels.

[Jim Becker]

Tiny little thing... ROFLOL!!!

Congrats on your new CNC, Martin! That's going to kick things up a notch for your production, I suspect! 'Glad you got permission to turn it on, too...it works better that way.

[Brady Watson]

Congratulations!

Looks like a nice, beefy machine. The multiple vacuum pumps are the way to go.

Good luck with it!

[Bruce Page]

Beautiful machine!
I am always amazed at how fast the heavy duty commercial cnc's rapid travel. You better not be standing in the way!

[Brad Shipton]

That is a clean looking machine. What year is the machine? The vacuums look almost new. I think you mentioned a budget north of 100k before, so this seems like a great choice. Parameters and cnc....great fun. At least you have a buddy that can help.

[Mark Bolton]

Gonna be interesting to watch. Im jealous of the drill block, less so of the funnel on the dog. Your shop is way too clean.

[Martin Wasner]

That is a clean looking machine. What year is the machine? The vacuums look almost new. I think you mentioned a budget north of 100k before, so this seems like a great choice. Parameters and cnc....great fun. At least you have a buddy that can help.

It was built in late 2016 It's got 242 hours on it. That was the main reason I wanted to turn it on. I wanted to validate my guess. I was guessing between 200-300, so pretty dang close. Luckily one of my employees has a ton of time on the cam software, and he understand the logic. I'm stumbling in the dark. Boolean logic is a new one for me. I get the fundamental idea, but I don't know how to efficiently apply it. That is going to be a very painful learning curve.

Gonna be interesting to watch. Im jealous of the drill block, less so of the funnel on the dog. Your shop is way too clean.

Blasphemy! No such thing as too clean. One thing I thought was interesting, look at the shop it came out of. Look at the shop it went in. Which would you rather work in? I'm guessing that place was wall to wall piles of dust.

Beautiful machine!
I am always amazed at how fast the heavy duty commercial cnc's rapid travel. You better not be standing in the way!

It'll never see full speed. It's either ramping up, or slowing down and it never actually gets to full tilt. I looked it up a while ago, I think the travel speed is something bonkers like 3800 in/min.

[Mark Bolton]

Agreed. I'm a fan of clean though I never get as close as I'd like. Been in the knee deep in dust shops and it's not for me lol. You'll kill it with that thing when you pull the pin. Will open up w whole new game.

[Bill George]

You said: Luckily one of my employees has a ton of time on the cam software, and he understand the logic. I'm stumbling in the dark. Boolean logic is a new one for me. I get the fundamental idea, but I don't know how to efficiently apply it. That is going to be a very painful learning curve.

I am sure this takes standard code, correct?

[Martin Wasner]

You said: Luckily one of my employees has a ton of time on the cam software, and he understand the logic. I'm stumbling in the dark. Boolean logic is a new one for me. I get the fundamental idea, but I don't know how to efficiently apply it. That is going to be a very painful learning curve.

I am sure this takes standard code, correct?

Yeah, the cam software runs on G code that will be spit out by the cad software, but getting cabinet software to do what you want requires a lot of parametric formulas to twist it into what you want. If X is Y, then Z=42 That sort of thing. The cam software is Woodwop, and it is also cad, but more in a starting from a blank page sort of thing. I'm using Mozaik now for drawing the cabinets, and it's been a tough couple of weeks learning to get around in the program. I'm finally getting semi proficient at drawing, but the machining has a long ways to go in setup before I can start sending nests to the router. I've opened Woodwop. That's it. I have zero clue how to operate it. I'm taking baby steps. I feel like I'll get a grip on Woodwop faster than I will Mozaik, but Mozaik is what we need to make shop prints, presentation drawings for the client, and spit out nests of parts.

The salesman all say it's ready to roll. Sure, it's ready to roll for how the people who wrote the software want to build cabinets. To build things the way you want, takes some trickery, lies, and deception.

As an example, we run stretchers front and back in our drawer openings. It holds the plywood potato chip of a carcass straight(er) that way, and it gives you something to rest the slide on when installing them. There's no option for a back stretcher currently in the parameters.
The software wants to make an individual stretcher for each opening. That's a nightmare. It should end up the same length of the deck assuming the horizontal run of drawers isn't broken by a door or something.
The stretcher itself should have a small dado ran through it as well to hold the partition captive. This will eliminate the need to pull a tape to keep openings the same size during assembly. The less you pull a tape, the faster it is, and the less opportunity to make mistakes.
Also a formula will have to be made to get the stretchers to snap into position where I want. Moving them manually takes time that could be spent doing things that better pay the bills.

[Martin Wasner]

You'll kill it with that thing when you pull the pin. Will open up w whole new game.

Gawd I hope so. I'm sick of working 3000+ hour years.

[Bill George]

So why did you switch from CabnetWare?

[Martin Wasner]

So why did you switch from CabnetWare?

It's not longer supported so there is no way to go from the basic drafting version I've got to a cnc version.


I did buy a copy and seat key for Cabinetvision with the router, but they threatened to sue me for $250k if I used it before paying $8500 to transfer it to my company. I'll take the $5k I spent on it and throw it in the garbage before I'm held hostage by anyone. Cabinetvision is great software, but you pay through the nose up front and their maintenance fees are large as well. I'm paying less for my Mozaik subscription than I would for the maintenance contract on CV. Mozaik has been great to deal with so far. Vero/Cabinetvision made me want to resort to violence. I explained that I would tell my tale online whenever possible as well.

I do think it'd cost me a lot more to get CV to do what I want. Setting up native functionality in CV is way over my head, and would take someone probably 24-48 hours I was told to do what I wanted. That at $125/hr adds up in a hurry. It'd be a different story if I was launching $10m a year out the door, but when you're a small time shop in the middle of nowhere with less than $500k in gross sales, that's a VERY large pill to swallow.


Ten years ago, your options were pretty limited. Coders weren't in abundance either. Nowadays, the game has changed. There's lots of ways to do what needs to be done. CV needs to get with the times and realize their market has changed, the climate has changed. They need to get competitive, or someone else is going to be eating their lunch. Paying $25,000 for software and another $2,000 a year to maintain it is an outdated model. A lot of software, CAD or not, has gone subscription based.

[Mark Bolton]

If your running Mozaik you may give CabinetsenseSoftware a look for Sketchup. Thats what we run. You can pretty much setup your library however you construct cabs. Add stretchers/parts anywhere, any type of construction, setup all your construction boring in the machining database. I use it for far more than just cabinets. With a little bit of creative thinking you can pretty much build anything other than heavily radius' work. Paul has been a dream with regards to support. Top notch. Super fast responses.

You of course have to take some time to setup your libraries initially which sucks and you have some kinks to work out but as with anything the more your in it the easier it gets.

The software side of it to me is where the statement from a lot of people that if your planning a lot of production on a CNC you'd better budget for a dedicated draftsman because there are a lot of hours in the setup. If the bulk of your stuff will be accommodated by a pretty reasonable library its less of an issue.

We cut parts for another shop and I have his complete construction style setup as a separate library. If we had several shops like that they could each have their own library and then at that point its pretty much drag and drop other than for specials.