New Tool Idea

[jck57]

This idea is not directly related to book scanning but there are many smart people on this board so I posted it in Social.

Thinking about CNC routers and feedback control of robots got me wondering if it is possible to make a semi-feedback-controlled hand-held grinder. The concept: Imagine a sculptor approaching a solid block of material with a hand held die grinder. The cutter is a carbide ball 1/2" in diameter. As she removes material and approaches the desired shape, the speed of the die grinder automatically decreases. When the cutter is very close to the final shape, the power is automatically cut to the die grinder. The cutter is then changed to a smaller one and the process repeats until the entire sculpture is finished.

It seems that the technology to accomplish this is not so challenging. The computer needs to know where the cutter is in three-dimensional relation to the three dimensional digital rendering of the sculpture stored within the computer. And of course the computer needs to know where the cutter head is in real three dimensional space. It seems that some kind of transmitter could be attached to the die grinder and three sensors mounted in the sculptor's studio in order to locate the grinder digitally. The rest is accessible software.

What do you think?

[cfmorrill]

It's interesting to think about, but in a sense, it's double duty. You have a complex machine working full time to do something, and a person working full time to accomplish the same thing. One of the great attractions of cnc is that you can walk away and let the machine do its thing while the person involved can sit down, make some phone calls, and try to sell the stuff. Also, I've spent my life making things, but I'm pretty slow to respond to outside stimuli...when you've got a grinder going, even a small one, I find it hard to imagine that it would be possible to stop and start quickly enough to produce something of any value. My synapses are just not as fast as a set of servo motors with feedback loops.

Sounds like a cool art statement though, and one of those projects that could lead somewhere else entirely...

charles

[Gerard]

i like the concept, instead of mechanical parts, some intelligent software, i think it has a lot of use cases

but the software part and developing is a huge time investment for one person, for one person building a 3d open source printer is easier

[StevePoling]

I wonder if the Kinect or the Leap might be helpful in implementing this idea.