I am working on designing a universal board carrier (another thread). I have come up with some interesting tricks which can be used in a much simpler board carrier. Get a piece of 40" X 10" X 1/2" MDF and make, what I call, the poorman's carrier. It takes the CW about 15 minutes to mark out the parts if you have a saw to cut it out and a router table to finish up the edges. (I have also included an mpc that the machine will totally cut out.)
This carrier is not universal, it only holds 3/4" thick boards. It will hold boards from 6" X 2" X 3/4" to 24" X 13" X 3/4". No extra wood has to be wasted to stay under the rollers. The machine directly measures the board and not the carrier. The thickness measuring routine also works as if the board was down on the belts.
The main carrier consists of two rails which run along the edges of the board. The board is held in place by head pressure against the sandpaper in the rails. The rail depth is only 1/2" and so a 3/4" board sits proud by 1/4". This is the trick that gets the machine to measure the actual board length. The rollers drop enough at the ends of the board to trigger the measuring process. The tops of the rails have black sections where the board sensor travels to measure the width. This is the trick which causes the machine to measure only the actual board width. The carrier also has touch spots for the bit so that the machine also measures the thickness of the board.
After the machine finishes the measuring operations, one slides two thin (a little less than 1/4" thick) strips on top of the carrier rails. These strips simply stop the rollers from dropping off of the ends of the board. This trick is what keeps the carve "under the rollers".
To make the carrier, you have to cut out the parts and glue them together. Each side is a sandwich of two parts. The touch spot which sticks out the keypad side needs to be undercut to clear the squaring plate. Router, saw, or grind enough clearance. You will need some grip tape from the hardware store. Stick it on the rails and trim off the extra. With some of the left over MDF from the cut out board, run off some thin strips. (You may need a few sets of these at varying thickness between 3/16 and 1/4 to go with boards that vary from being 3/4. It is nice if they have a friction fit.) Place some black electrical tape (or black paint or black felt pen) somewhere as I have on the rails.
To use the carrier, simply put a 3/4" board in it against the stops in the front of the rails. Squeeze the parts together and clamp in the machine so that the board sensor will be above the black areas of the rails. The machine will measure the board width and then the length. You must choose to center on board. (When you choose center on board, the machine will stop the board for the touches with the front edge just under the front roller. This is what lines up the touch spots. If you choose place on corner, you will have to jog to touch to line up the touch spots. If you do not, you will get a z stall when the bit misses the hole.) That is it, it should just carve away.
There are some details which we can discuss later. Things like thickness calibration. Limitations on jogging.
Poorman's Board Carrier
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