Has anyone made a table that could do vacuum holding, screw in clamp holding and vacuum forming? I figure that the holes for a vacuum bed could be tapped and then you could use screw in clamps. I figure once you have a vacuum bed, all you need is a heat source and the top part of the vacuum molding rig and you have a vacuum former.
I should probably note that I am new to CNC and need to at least get myself set by making myself a clamping system. I want to plan ahead though and try to figure out how to maximize the potential of my Shapeoko2. I notice someone does have a design for a vacuum bed (I think for the Shapeoko2) floating out on the web, but I forget where.
That sounds like a really cool combination of features!
I think I saw something on instructables and it was featured just recently. Are we talking about same thing? They were making moulds with vacuum and heat gun.
@Max_Kalin that is vacuum forming.
Never met anyone who was keen on vacuum tables for clamping when working with metal but I guess it depends on what your primary work is
For the heatsource I can recommend infrared ceramic dryer components - you can mount it on m8 profiles on top of the machine. http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/nexthermal-1214775-elstein/ Easy to mount and to control. They could be interesting because they can be used in vacuum.