Roland cutter knife prototype for CNC machine!

Roland cutter knife holder for CNC

Amazing first cuts done in ordinary A4 paper!

I started looking on the internet for setups for drag knifes but found them quite expensive. Not a problem if you really have something you need it for - but I could not justify it for playing around....so I started looking on aliexpress - and that's where I came across Roland cutters. They where so cheap - 7USD for a knife holder and 15 knives - wow! 

So then the research began. I understood quite early that I needed a spring setup - you will never have a 100% flat surface for the cutter to operate on, and just microscopic variations would ruin the result and could also break something. I designed the roland cutter holder in Onshape, you can find the parts here: Roland Cutter Holder - Onshape

The orange part is meant to be used for spring tensioning, but I did not use this in the first testing, it seemed to work quite good with no adjustments 😊  

You will need 

• 8mm rod 
• 2x LM8UU bearings
• 2x Springs
• Some plywood (I also made a 3d printed version, but havent tested it yet)
• A strip to hold the cutter
• The roland cutter. I bought this - 7USD - crazy!! Ali Roland Cutter!

Below is a video that shows how the cutter would flex. You see the rod also moving in the video,  it is supposed to be a plate on the top locking it,  as you can see from the CAD drawing... I just didn't have time to put it on,  too eager to test the tool! 

I found it supersimple to adjust the z-axis. First locate x and y, then just run the z axis down until it touched the surface - then push it down a millimeter to keep some pressure down to the working table and to cater for variations on the plate. Finished!

As for CAM setup I made a tool with 0.1mm diameter and with feedrate of 600mm/minute.  I then defined the cutouts with 0.1mm depth (since the knife is already plunged into the material at z=0).

I showed my wife the initial results and instantly got my first product order - Cutouts of cat profiles to use in the kindergarden she works in!

First order - cat profiles!

Here is a video of the first cut of a snowflake (I use Estlcam as controller AND cam).

Batman logo in the making

Next steps would be to do some more testing on vinyl. I have ordered some vinyl sheets and it would be fun to try to make some vinyl stickers. This is a great addon to the CNC, and really increases the value of the initial investment in such machines. As always - it is just imagination that sets the limits to what can be made 😎 I will make some new posts when I have tested this adapter more extensively.

If you have any questions or ideas for improvements please let me know :D