Hot Wire Foam cutting CNC Machines

Home Built Hot Wire CNC Foam cutter
Day 1 - Vertical Y Axis
Day 2 - Horizontal X Axis
Day 3 - Lead Screw
Day 4 - Electronics
Day 5 - Finalizing the machine
Other CNC foam cutters
A New Design - Hot wire CNC Foam cutter
Foam Sample Cuts
Foam Cutting Videos
Links - RC stuff, Stepper Motors, Lead Screws
More information - about stepper motors

Links
FoamLinx Site - Foam Cutting CNC Machines
CNCLinx Site - CNC Router Tables
Foam Cutting Services - EPP, EPS, XPS
All About Foam Forum - Beta
Composites Prototyping and Design
Large and Configurable CNC Machines *
Online Store

Articles
How to coat EPS foam (Crown Moldings)
How to build an EPS Foam Recycler
How to build an EPS base and Cap cutter
How is EPS manufactured - molded
How to make RC foam planes
How to cut EPS, XPS, EPP foam
How to cut Polyurethane foam ( PU )
How to cut Acrylics - Laser cutting
DIY CNC Foam Cutter Blog - New

What is - more info about foam
What is EPS foam
What is XPS foam
What is EPP foam - Expanded Polypropylene
What is PE foam - Polyethylene foam
What is Polyurethane foam
What is Memory Foam

Sunnyvale

The Electronics

PCB (Printer Circuit Board) design and assembly

Component side with printer cable connector and stepper motor drivers soldered, the 4 four pin connectors on the top right
side of each stepper motor IC are full step/half step. In order to operate the board in half step mode,
connect jumpers on the top two pins.

A larger picture for more detail. You will also need a simple Parallel port cable - just make sure its pin to pin cable

Power Supply:
Two good choices for power supply
1. Laptop power supply or power adapter - anything that can handle 3A and above at 17VDC and up - Should be about $20.
2. Power transformer with a rectifying bridge and large caps - works well but not that easy to put together

The cable - D25 male to D24 female pin to pin connection
As of Jan 1 2007 we do not carry these boards anymore (the ones above)
Click here for our online store for stepper motors and stepper motor drivers.

There are a few software out there that will run the machine - some need special hardware - we spent months
testing and evaluating many of these software and hardware.

1. FoamWorks software will work with the electronics in the package below - has CAD capabilities as well
2. GMFC - needs a timer module - without the timer the package below will not work
3. Mach3 is a generic CNC router software will work with the package below, but you need to be able to generate
4 axis g code.
4. KCAM - same as above - generic CNC router software - will do nice PCB boards as well
5. DeskCNC - is an additional hardware board that connects to the PC via the serial port and its output is the electronics
package below, not very easy to put together but doable.

All of the software above other then DeskCNC require you to have a printer port on the PC

If you are going to cut wings or simple shapes we would recommend the use of Foamworks
If you want to cut complicated shapes and multiple shapes we would recommend DeskCNC or Mach3

We have in stock a 4 axis box and motors that will work with foamworks software
More in our online store

Includes: 4 motors, cables, computer to box cable, power cable, and electronics (boxed) and tested !
Motors are bipolar 180Oz/inch with 4 wires
Drivers are 2.5A each 24V (inside the box)
Box is ready to run out of the box !
Will work with Foamworks, Mach3, KCAM....
For more information please contact us at info@foamlinx.com
Price: $950 shipped in the US