Update on Digirout CNC

This is an update on my Digirout CNC. At one point it appeared I would never get the machine, the company appeared to have dropped off the face of the earth after I sent them the down payment. Things have turned around in a big way!

After I finally reached him he returned the deposit but continued to build the machine. It took months but I finally received it. It is very well built and is performing great! The communications issues have also been resolved. Rick stays in constant communications now. I'm not sure how he made any money on this machine, it should have cost at least double what I paid.

One good/bad thing about Rick is that he is a perfectionist. It's good that he was apparently constantly redesigning the machine as he was building it because I got a better machine as a result. The bad side of that is that it took several months to get it. If you want a CNC and if you don't mind waiting this is the way to go. If Rick seems to drop off the face of the earth on you please contact me and I'll try to help you with that. He and I are now e-mailing and talking regularly, he answers questions usually within minutes or hours.

I still have a few finishing touches to do on mine. I'm making my own dust collector shoe and I'm machining the parts for it on the machine. It seems to be working great! It will take time to discover any possible problems but right now I'm really happy with it. My brother Marshall was here between Christmas and New Year and he was impressed with it. His machine is a Digital Tool which was also built by Rick. (Rick and his brother were the founders of Digital Tool)

The attached photo was taken before the spindle was mounted. I'll try to get some more photos later and post them.

mk

Should be any time, a batch of boxes have already been shipped to PE.

mk

Only $6800. I added some extra steel to the table frame, bought the 1.5 HP dust collector, etc. With all that plus the shipping of the machine I'll end up with about $8K in it.

Here is the Digirout web site... http://www.digirout.com/

mk

I think he's providing customers with more accurate completion time estimates now. The machine evolved somewhat while mine was being built. He changed to a different lead screw for the X axis and made some other changes. That's a lot of what took so long, he was apparently redesigning it as he went on mine. Now maybe he can duplicate mine within a more reasonable time as long as he doesn't continue to improve it. At some point you have to call the design finished and ship the thing!

mk

Actually I added the three rails along the sides, he also suggested diagonals. Note the 6" x 6" square 1/4" thick steel plates connecting the middle and lower rail, this turns these two rails into an H frame, it isn't going anywhere. I originally planned to put more between the middle and upper rail but believe me, it isn't necessary. The thing is solid as a rock! It is in effect like two diagonals or an X between each set of legs.

mk

The main lines were originally not shaded but now they are Hann shaded and it was an improvement. Legendre might have been better. Eventually I will replace these with near floor to ceiling free standing CBT's with just enough arc to get good coverage over the seating area. It will probably be awhile, lots of other things going on these days.

mk

Somehow I misread this question originally, I was thinking you were asking about the new CBT36 PE will be offering. My new mains are a ways out due to other things going on. Also, the "sub-sub" is kind of on a back burner but I'm still contemplating ideas on how to suspend the panels. I figure if I make them big enough I won't need much linear excursion so that should make it easier.

I'm almost recovered from my knee injury (ACL surgery) now and I have two new (larger) main parachutes that should come in any day so after that I'll be spending more time jumping for awhile than speaker building. It's been over four months...major withdrawal symptoms! Gotta get the knees in the breeze!

mk

It was a painful complete rewire of the mains to add the Hann shading. The theatre was down for remodeling at the time so the speakers, screen, everything was moved out of the room anyway to get rid of that God Awful original color scheme. I figured that was my opportunity to do the shading.

I most likely will reuse the same drivers. I may add a few if needed depending on how long they end up being. I would also like to add the little tweeters like in the center and turn them into a 3-way design.

mk