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What does job setup involve?

With SmartBench, setting up your job is easy; this is a quick overview of how you can set up your workholding and datums in a way that works for you.

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Workholding

SmartBench is a flexible platform which allows you to adapt your workholding, depending on your application and your materials. 

Spoilboards

A sacrificial sheet called a spoilboard is commonly positioned underneath the stock. This allows the cutter to safely break through the bottom surface of the stock.

Clamps

You can use speed clamps or F clamps to securely hold your sheet material in place. These can be placed at either end of the Y bench.

Woodscrews

It is possible to fix material directly to the clamp panels (A) of the Y bench or to a spoilboard under the stock material using woodscrews. Make sure that they are:

  • positioned away from the cutting toolpaths to prevent damages to the tool, or

  • in case of spoilboard - driven at least 1mm below the top surface of the material, so as not to disturb flatness

A: Clamp panels

Dogs

Dogs, which are normally made from stainless steel, act as a stop for you to butt your material up against. These can be used as a fast way to fix a wide range of stock sizes in place.

Tape

SmartBench can also process smaller stock. This can be fixed down using double sided tape for low to medium strength holding. 

Jigs

Jigs are ideal for the kind of repetitive work that you need in a small production environment, ensuring that stock can be referenced to SmartBench quickly. 

And of course, you can make your own jigs for SmartBench, using SmartBench!

Vac table

Some of our customers are even creating their own vacuum tables for SmartBench:

Image credit - Steven J Michels.

Smartbench's UDL

Smartbench has a Uniformly Distributed Load of 100kg (225lbs) if exceeded you may find bending of the bench and inaccuracy within work pieces

Datuming

It is easy to position your job on SmartBench with our easy-to-use interface and datum tools.

XY datum

The XY datum can be positioned and set using the tool on all SmartBench models, and with a laser crosshair on SmartBench PrecisionPro.

Z datum

All models come with a Z probe plate to auto-detect tool position on the job surface for fast setup.

Boundary checking

SmartBench will automatically check job boundaries prior to starting the job, to ensure it is positioned within SmartBench’s limits. 


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Kieran Buchan

Kieran Buchan is the author of this solution

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Updated on Mon, 01 Jul 2024