Design of small router (700x900) for aluminium

Well, after a bit of agonising over whether to attach the X axis rails to the sides, under the bed or on top, I have decided to go for the gantry resting on top kind of design, which is what seems to be the consensus for best sturdiness, albeit this router will be built in aluminium, not steel, and its main use will be to cut aluminium.

Suggestions welcome.

Specs:

Bed built with 25mm tooling plate

X rails plus linear blocks, 25mm Hiwin

Y and Z rails and blocks, 20mm Hiwin.

Ballscrews 1605 TBI grade C5 with double ballnut on X and Y

Motors Nema 23 - 3.1Nm all round. 68V toroidal PSU. Drivers, Leadshine EM806. Controller: Kflop/KMotionCNC

Y rail mounted on 50x50 heavy duty extrusion.

Gantry to bed distance 120mm, spindle to bed 135mm. Z rail mounted on the 25mm moving plate.

Gantry construction: Two piece "L" shape with heavy duty extrusion, 160mm tall in total plus 10mm tooling plate bolted in front.

Gantry sides, 25mm thick plus additional square brackets in 20mm.

Underside bed, heavy duty extrusion frame with braces.

Spindle 2.2Kw.Chinese watercooled.


Attachment 23245

Attachment 23246

Looking beefy :D

What size slots does 50x50 extrusion use?

Is the double gantry sides connected somehow or just there for beauty?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nr1madman

Looking beefy :D

What size slots does 50x50 extrusion use?

Is the double gantry sides connected somehow or just there for beauty?

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The extrusion has an 8mm slot, but I will be using M6 bolts for the 25mm Hiwin rails.

The inner extra gantry sides are basically 4x detachable right angle brackets (for front and rear of gantry) that bolt to both gantry and base. Just a little extra support. It's difficult to see because the renderer "fuses" everything as if it were a continuous flat. One way to avoid that is to put a tiny chamfer so it shows separation between pieces, but I haven't bothered with this or with covers and other finishing details.

Alright :D

Looks beautiful and I'm sure you will build an awesome machine!

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I've just finished making the toroidal power supply as per instructions by your posts here in this forum. Working well. Here is the video testing one of the four steppers in slow jog, then fast jog and then fast rapid at 3000rpm.

m_c will be partial to the lovely control board. The driver is an EM806. The microstep was set at 1600

The transformer is 24V-24V, it gives me 70V output with the driver connected. 3x capacitors 4700uf, 100V, 105deg. Bleeder resistor is 3K9 5W with Led in series. With nothing connected is discharges the capacitors completely in around 4 mins. With one driver, in 7 seconds. Slow blow 5A fuse in the 240V input.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq31YOS9rJE

Attachment 23406

Excellent result

Looking good Edward.

Thanks guys. I looked at yours when I was making it. I devoured the forum for info:)

Now the next thing was to run two motors Master/Slave each with their own driver. The controller being Kflop, I had to change a couple of things in the init file to assign an axis as a slave. It was easier than expected. Next is to write or modify an existing C file to do the homing.

I already have piles of tooling plate from various sources waiting to be machined over Xmas and beyond, as I am using my milling machine to build the router. One of the plate suppliers was Click Metal, I was impressed that I ordered on Sunday evening and got it delivered by Tuesday morning, and it was a big order with lots of cuts, so I will use them again in the future.

I also got my TBI ballscrews from China, the same guys that Zeeflyboy ordered from. For anyone interested, search for TOPPER in Aliexpress and then ask to communicate with John. Very good service, knowledgeable, polite, quick, you couldn't ask for better service. Received them around 12 days from order, machined exactly to specs. Nothing was a problem for them. I have C5 grade with double ballnuts, (except the Z, just single ballnut). What can I say, they look excellent, but we'll see what they are like once they are installed.


Edward