Accessories: Production Aids

More options to make your shop more productive and profitable.

Air Drill

A pneumatic drill head for point-to-point drilling. This unit was designed to take the abuse of straight plunging that causes damage to the linear bearings in spindles and routers and will allow for precision depth drilling for cabinet manufacturing and similar 32mm construction methods. Up to two units may be installed in addition to a router or spindle unit to optimize line-boring potential. (Photo shows Air Drill mounted next to 4hp HSD Spindle.)

The Air Drill Unit runs off 85-90 psi compressed air and requires a dedicated output switch within the ShopBot control Box. When the output switch is activated, the drill head is turned on and pneumatically driven to cutting position. The plunge is then made precisely by the Z axis. Hole depth is set in the file and different depths can be done in the same file.

Chuck accepts up to 3/8 in bits. Bradpoint bits are recommended. VCarve Pro V9.0 design software easily creates Part Files utilizing the Air Drill in point-to-point drilling operations. We recommend Air Drills for our PRSalpha tools only.

Dual Z Axis

A pre-assembled dual z-axis that can be set to run independently. With the second Z set to run independently of the primary Z, the Control Software will allow you to switch between Z's. You can put a different cutter in each Z axis and have a two-tool tool changer. Most panel processing operations require no more than two cutters, and having two Z's can significantly improve efficiency for a reasonable cost.

A Dual Z is our primary two-Z option. With a Dual Z, two Z axes are mounted as close together as possible on a single, special YZ-car and not an add-on option as our other offerings. The other two offerings that follow are for very special cases and are not appropriate unless fully understood.

NOTE: Even though the Z’s are as close together as possible, the cutters are still about 7” apart. Thus, because the travel of a YZ car is only about 1” beyond the nominal cutting area, a Dual Z requires a tool that is a foot wider in size so that both Z’s will be able to cut a common area of the intended nominal size.

To assure 48” width working coverage, a Dual Z tool needs to have a 60” width.

To assure 60” width working coverage a Dual Z tool needs to have 72” width.