yet another useless hack. I suppose if you need a thin piece of foam less than 7 x 7 cut out this will be perfect for you, but my bet is the creators never use it other than exhibiting how “31337″ their hacking skills are.

Posted at 1:02 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by kirov

This is an awesome hack… I’ve been looking for something just like this to create custom attache case cut outs, it’d also be incredibly handy for modifying the foam inserts on automotive interiors.. something I have to do often by hand and could do with perfect precision using something like this.

Posted at 1:07 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by twistedsymphony

now to do it with something other then foam….

Posted at 1:11 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by monkeyslayer56

@kirov
Whoa man, whats all the angst for? Just because you don’t see the usefulness of something doesn’t mean its not useful. You could use these to cast metal and make models, or home made gears for drive trains.

And even if it is useless, who cares? Its a fun looking weekend project.

Posted at 1:13 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by Robert

@kirov

Probably one of the most ignorant comments I’ve seen on hackaday. Raul set out to automate something and did a fine job. Maybe you don’t need foam cutouts, I bet you don’t need an NES guitar or a VR maze either but that doesn’t make them useless.

Posted at 1:26 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by anon

The hack is cool and all, but I gotta give huge props for the old school PC demo music on the video. It makes we want to download a DOS emulator and watch some Future Crew demos.

Posted at 1:41 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by sellout

This would be great for making model airplane wings in cross section pieces, or just the ribs. I wonder if it would go through thin ABS plastic sheets as well. At any rate, for small modeling and rapid prototyping this is a pretty neat hack.

Posted at 1:48 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by polymath

Guys, it’s pretty obvious kirov is trolling. Just ignore him.

Posted at 1:54 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by captain obvious

@kirov: successful troll is successful
srsly. gtfo the had comments, this one is rather decent although obivously for specific use.

Posted at 1:56 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by loltrolls

so glad he’s not an atomic playboy.

Posted at 2:03 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by lejupp

Great hack! I had some moderate success with cutting black foam with a 300mW laser on my plotter, but it’s a fairly slow process. Hot wire is probably much more practical.

Posted at 2:56 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by svofski

Lost foam casting… that foam can now be turned into aluminum bronze or even iron. Think lost wax investment casting… except foam = wax and sand (or other material) = investment. Instead of melting the wax from the mold, the metal tends to be poured right into the low density foam surrounded by the mold material. (This is not intended to be an all inclusive explanation of the subject…)

Posted at 3:56 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by Adam Ziegler

Get a new hobby kirov.

Posted at 4:08 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by Mic

@polymath: My understanding of hot wire cutting is that its not particularly suited to anything besides foam. As others have suggested, these can be used for lots of useful things none the less.

One deficiency I noticed was the way it had to cut through the edge of the annulus gear in order to cut out the void. I wonder if there’s a better way…

Posted at 4:29 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by anonymous coward

excellent hack

Posted at 4:43 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by jωt

@ac: He could have cut a hole in the middle of foam, fed the wire through it, and edited the parameters of the program so it knew it was starting in the middle…

You can also do something like this with a scroll saw and a spiral blade.

Posted at 4:53 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by atrain

Kirov, you fucking troll. Will someone ban him yet? He does this on every post and gets a mess started.

Anyway, this is a great hack and I can think of several uses for something along these lines. Super cool thing to have, and I never even would have thought of it.

Posted at 4:55 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by Frank McSteez

This is a really nice build. I have been plotting against a few old scanners, myself, but I haven’t gotten far on that project. This guy’s work could really help me, to build my own project (@ Kirov). So, even though this only slices foam, it’s well built, well-documented, uses parts others have available, and it works.

Posted at 5:32 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by psymansays

You know that this is a really great hack for people interested in the lost foam casting method. CNC rapid protoyping for any type of aluminum part. just glue on your risers, nest the parts together and pour in your molten aluminum. Blam! rough cast intricate parts. better than most people can do by hand.. and quicker too.

Posted at 6:03 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by Jon

He gets points just for using the soundtrack from Future Crew’s Second Reality demo.

Posted at 7:43 pm on Oct 19th, 2009 by Kenny G

The speed on that rig is as impressive as much as anything. I could see myself using this to make ink stamps for my mum as she’s been on a handicrafts tip for a few months now.
Wonder how much further it could be taken to get a hobby scale band saw under control, maybe as a material controller with the saw stationary. Then a whole pile of new materials come in to play.

Posted at 2:10 am on Oct 20th, 2009 by Phil

video needs more references to yoghurt

Posted at 2:50 am on Oct 20th, 2009 by anon

The next one upgrade with only one scanner?

Posted at 8:28 am on Oct 20th, 2009 by kabukicho2001

I don’t think you realize how much a cnc foam cutter cost, of course this one is smaller, so its only a couple of hundred, but if you’ve ever played warhammer or other table top you know how annoying cutting foam can be. This would be perfect to cut in layers and then come through with a hand cutter and make it into an actual hill or barrier

Posted at 8:34 am on Oct 20th, 2009 by David L

That’s a neat piece of re-purposing… and my very favourite sort of hack.

*nods head approvingly*

Posted at 12:26 pm on Oct 20th, 2009 by Richard

Ah Kirov, like the child no one wanted.

It is also brilliant that his post is immediately followed up by a “This is an awesome hack… I’ve been looking for something just like this…” – kirov = fail.

Nice trolling though.

Posted at 1:53 pm on Oct 20th, 2009 by tehgringe

ok here is the plan with this one. go to the local gun shop. offer to do a pistol case for free to show and display on counter, set out some bussiness cards and blamo you have a money making venture.

Posted at 6:24 pm on Oct 20th, 2009 by silvershovler

Similar to the pistol case, the first thing I thought of was to cut holes in foam to store my ever increasing Warhammer armies. Cutting foam by hand is a bloody nightmare.

Awesome hack. *nods nods*

Posted at 3:05 am on Oct 21st, 2009 by Sepherion