Quote Originally Posted by Danny View Post
Is this possible ?
What should i buy?
Can i make this happen on a shoestring?
Nobody can truely answer this accurately without knowing the length of the shoe string.!! . . .If your thinking £300-£400 then forget it it's NOT do-able and don't let anybody tell you it is because there just pissing up your back.!!. . . . but . . . If you set a sensible realistic Minimum budget of around £800 - £1000 drivers etc but NOT PC or software then yes it's easily do-able.

Like Jonathan says timing belt driven machine will work out the cheapist option to do what you need, but he's wrong(Sorry jonathan) about the resolution not being a problem with belts.! . . I've built a few belt driven machines to do similiar light weight jobs (cutting out Hypalon for RIBS) and without gear reduction the low resolution becomes a problem with tight radius and medium to intricate detail work.
The problem without reduction when cutting/drawing small Radius,circes etc or intricate detail the feeds needs to be low otherwise the corners get clipped and because of the high effective pitch using direct drive it makes the motors work in a low speed range they don't like. This cause's them to run rough also because of the Low resoulution the action is jerky.
The amount of reduction will depend on the diameter of pulleys used but from expeinece at least 3/1 is needed to be usable and keep the motors working in nice range they like.

Must say thou if your going to the trouble/expense of building a machine then it's a absolute no brainer to let the machine cut the plywood rather than draw it.? . . . Belt drive will easily be upto the job of cutting ply wood if a decent design and job is made of the build.