Shop Sabre SideKick 8 w/Drill Unit & Scribe
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:23 pm
I've bought a Shop Sabre SideKick 8 new two years ago.
I ordered the full suite of Centroid products for this conversion - Acorn, of course the Plasma THC kit, wireless MPG, and the Ether1616 I/O expansion. This will be my fourth Acorn build. I also have a router, mill, and lathe running Acorn. I'll do my best to document my Acorn conversion here in hopes in may be of benefit to others.
My Shop Sabre has a lot of the options they offer. I will be doing what I have to do to maintain that existing functionality:
Control cabinet: For some reason, the control enclosure door hinges down to the ground. This makes it nearly impossible to work on the machine without sitting on the door and potentially messing it up..
One of the Clearpath servos:
It came with the WinCNC control. I've not been happy with the control since the first time I powered it up. In all fairness, Shop Sabre's customer service and support are truly top notch. My converting to Centroid Acorn CNC Plasma control is in no way negative commentary about the Shop Sabre team. I do have some thoughts about choices with the machine that I'm sure will come out in this thread. I ordered the full suite of Centroid products for this conversion - Acorn, of course the Plasma THC kit, wireless MPG, and the Ether1616 I/O expansion. This will be my fourth Acorn build. I also have a router, mill, and lathe running Acorn. I'll do my best to document my Acorn conversion here in hopes in may be of benefit to others.
My Shop Sabre has a lot of the options they offer. I will be doing what I have to do to maintain that existing functionality:
- Drill Unit: It has a pneumatically operated quill that drops down. Then the Z axis is used like it would in a milling machine for drilling. I intend to use the analog out to control speed of the drill unit.
- Air scribe: I haven't used this much up to now. I want to get this working well so I can use it when it makes sense.
- Control over plasma current: I have the Hypertherm option card. Not sure if this is supported by Centroid yet. If not, maybe I can help get it going.
- Fusion 360 Post Processor: Ultimately, I'd like to be abe to post one file and have it able to handle all three functions listed above. Not sure where the Fusion post is currently or what it's capabilities are.
- Laser Pointer Zero
Control cabinet: For some reason, the control enclosure door hinges down to the ground. This makes it nearly impossible to work on the machine without sitting on the door and potentially messing it up..
One of the Clearpath servos: