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 -
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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
Build an RC foam plane from scratch
with Depron
Work in progress
We started out designing the home built
CNC foam cutter from the need to cut wings, over the years we improved the
design
but never really built any RC planes - almost everything we fly today is ARFs.
My son decided that he wants to build an electric RC plane from scratch, I think
the best route is to build it out of Depron.
Here is some information about Depron (what is Depron)
Depron is a sheet of extruded polystyrene foam, no beads, with a smooth
"skin"-like finish on both sides.
A material that comes close to depron is "blue foam", also known as "roofmate"
or "floormate", but the available minimum
thickness of blue foam is too much for what we want. If you slice blue foam down
to a usable thickness, it still lacks some
of the stiffness of depron, and also its smooth and strong surface layer
Very similar material to depron is used in the food industry - meat plates, and
fast food packing
We searched the web for free plans but found almost nothing - everything costs
money. That's why we decided to design
Our own foamie and put the plans out there form everyone to use. Like everything
on this site - all the information is free
to use, copy and manufacture - keep in mind that we don't warrantee, not we
endorse any product nor do we provide support
You are doing this at your own risk. Most important keep things simple and safe
!!!
Now lets have some fun.
Here is a drawing of a simple fomie, you can download the drawing in 3 formats,
DXF, DWG and PDF.
The programs we use are AutoCAD - but AutoCAD is a bit too expensive
The best program we found to date is Instant Engineer 14 which costs about $25.
With this program you can import and
export DXF files and DWG files (both are AutoCAD files).
Download the file in DXF format
Download the file in DWG format
Download the file in PDF format
We decided to go with 3mm Depron for our first model, price is $8 to $10 for a 30" x
40" x 3mm sheet
We got our depron from a local RC store , but search the web and you will find
lots of distributors
Since we have a laser cutter / engraver at our shop we decided to cut the parts
with the laser cutter.
Other ways to cut Depron is with hot wire or a simple exacto knife
Here is a short video with the laser cutter in action
Above is a picture of the 6mm Depron after we cut it with our laser cutter /
engraver.
We have received many requests to do custom cutting, and decided to follow this
path.
If you are interested in having your foam balsa or plywood cut by laser, send us
a DXF or DWG
file, and the material you want to cut and we will gladly quote you on the job.
We have an 80W CO2 laser.
More to come