robot milling boat

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/169865?a=855048

 

A good goal, but not very realistic with either the funding sought,or the design of the robot.

You have the robot cutting out a shape that looks like it is already assembled. In reality, you will start with a totally mishapen blob of something, hand the robot will have to negotiate some hefty roughing out.

Also, the robot doesn't have the reach to do the other side of the boat from where it is located. You really dont want to have to turn the hull around and re-calibrate the robot for the other side.

I have thought that a better approach would be to have an overhead gantry, with two heads on either side of the hull connected with some sort of parallelogram arms to place the heads in the same relative position.

Rather than cutting material, you may want to consider the new methods of 3d printing, eg



It will be a few years before $25,000 will buy you that sized setup for boats.

 

I doubt this would ever be justified. If you are trying to simplify the build process, investment casting would be a lot cheaper. Cutting away this much material will involve a huge amount of material that will become wastage. While a cast boat could really be made up in one big shot.

The problem of course is you would have to make a huge number of boats exacally the same to justify casting one. It just might be practical for an aluminium Jon boat or something similar, but there aren't enough big boats made to justify the cost of the molds in most cases.

The upside is once the mold is paid for each additional boat doesn't cost that much to build.

Figure aluminium at around $2/lb or so. But I have no idea what casting would do to the design of the boat. Though it would be possible to cast the entire hull, and stringers in one shot. Again, the cost problem comes in finding a hull you think you can sell enough of to justify the cost of the mold.

 

I was sure to have seen that stuff already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVsfxa6kM4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR0hTTxNLv8&feature=related

Not only for boats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqokK03BJsM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCc142ueScw&feature=related

Anyways, it's amazing to see a block of foam or wood become a complex curvy shape with so little effort, isn't it?

 

Did you see the amount of shavings on the floor? My guess is that 75% of the material gets cut out of the hull before its over. This is fine for a mold that will be used over and over. But not for a finished hull. The wastage would kill cost.