BUILD YOUR OWN SIDEWINDER

Robotic Material Sensing is a patent-pending innovation only available with CNC Factory. It automatically detects the thickness of the material and the corresponding height of its required tool. This “sensing” allows the dust hood to hover at the perfect spot over the material, creating a seal to prevent dust from escaping without squishing the dust brush, whether you are switching from thin to thick materials, or are using short or longer tools.

The Sidewinder has one of the largest CNC router screens which allows designing at the machine with your CAD/CAM software, so your operator never needs to leave the production spot. A larger screen also means you can have a more graphical interface (larger buttons, more detailed illustrations) which results in fewer errors. Its PC-front end also allows for our Tech Support to diagnose and fix any issues remotely.

Instead of manually cranking vacuum valve levers under the machine, you can simply adjust workholding by pressing a few buttons on the touchscreen and— voila, the vacuum valves adjust automatically! The Sidewinder also alerts the operator if there is insufficient vacuum before cutting, as well as automatically turns off vacuum when unloading processed parts. That’s definitely less thinking for the operator.

It means the Sidewinder knows its position at all times and does not need to find its starting point or “home” every time it is turned on, unplugged or reset. For older machines, homing is required daily— which wastes a few good minutes of production time. And, forgetting to “home” almost always results in inaccurate cuts.

No. Any unskilled operator, with or without CNC experience, can be trained to use the Sidewinder in just 1 day. Its graphical interface is in English.

No. Rubber belts get loose over time and can cause backlash and inaccurate cutting. Worse, they require periodic retensioning for maintenance. The Sidewinder uses 5G helical rack & pinion on the X & Y axes for consistent and absolute positioning.

The Sidewinder self cleans by activating dust extraction suction under the unloading arm in the center of the table, and spraying air on the sides to dislodge larger particles— all while unloading your parts. This ensures a clean spoilboard in 30 seconds with no human intervention.

Having tools on a rotary carousel allows rapid tool changes in under 8 seconds. More importantly, it creates an unobstructed table so loading of materials can be done on all 4 sides of the machine.

If cutting regular cabinets with the drill block, the Sidewinder can cut about 50 sheets (including the time for loading, unloading & cleaning) in an 8-hour shift. Note that cutting time increases together with the intricacy of your design. When fully upgraded with the loading & unloading tables, the Sidewinder can cut about 60 sheets in an 8-hour shift.