I would like to turn my reprap into a tangential knife cutter - slicing software advice needed

Hello All. I would like to add a tangential knife cutter head to my Lulzbot Taz clone. It would be great to be able to cut vinyl lettering, stencils, gaskets, etc. I would like to end up with something like this:

[www.youtube.com]

He uses RAMPS and Marlin, and uses E-Axis to make the rotational moves of the cutter head. He says that he is generating the g-code manually and hopes to implement automatic g-code generation soon.

Is this something that Slic3r or Cura can be easily configured to do? Perhaps even something that is already included with some slicing software? I'm not a programmer, but I would be willing to give it a shot. If anyone could point me in the right direction, I would be grateful!

Thank you,
Dean T

Off the top of my head I think it may work if you sliced 1 perimeter, no infill no top or bottom layers then just design your parts 1 layer thick.

As for the knife, someone else mentioned using a solenoid in place of a hotend and if you are running your machine horizontal unlike the video, you can use one of the swivel knifes already in use in vinyl cutters. They drag and change direction automatically. I am sure there will be more to it than just this but it's a start.

Your printer could probably easily do the cutting if you could replace your extruder with the knife, but I do not know what you mean by "rotational moves of the cutter head".
Some program changes to firmware is needed to exclude heating dependicies for the extruder.
Slicer is no good tool for producing gcode for cutting as you are working in 2D and only needs contours.
look for 2D CNC tools like CUT2D or similar to generate your G-code or make it "handwritten".

I would like to see a drag knife software solution as well.
I was thinking of a rotary cutter that is mounted off center of the axis of rotation. But I don't think it could make cut outs in cardboard.

This company selling SheetCAM software for 25 pounds.
[www.sheetcam.com]

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This company selling SheetCAM software for 25 pounds.
[www.sheetcam.com]

I think it's more like 135 pounds, you seem to need to software for 110 and the add-on for another 25.

Sorry, Ira

Remember also since the cutting blade will be on a pivot you have to start each cut away from the target line to allow the blade to spin around to the correct position. This will need to be just over the diameter of the blade sweep.