After much weighing up the pro/cons of going the mill conversion or router from scratch route, I've pretty much decided a well made router is the way to go for now.

I want at least 300mm x 300mm work area, with enough height to add a 4th axis at some point in the future. Main initial use will be plastic, but I want good aluminium capability for some future items, so designed to allow use of coolant i.e. rails/screws well protected from anything on the table.

So, current notepad doodles have come up with the following.

X-axis has about 400mm travel, with 200mm wide gantry sides.
Y-axis has about 350mm travel, with a 150mm wide/200mm high Z-axis mounting plate.
Z-axis has about 200mm travel, with bearing rails on spindle mount plate.

As I'd like to use profile rails, the main construction will be Alu plate and extrusion.
The main table will be U-shaped with open ends. X-axis rails will be mounted on the outside along with the twin ballscrews to give maximum protection. I'll probably go for twin steppers, as it's far simpler from a design/build point especially since I'd like to keep the ends clear.

Height from table to gantry I've currently got as 200mm, but I may drop this to 150mm once I consider 4th axis options.

Current plans are 20mm profile rails for all axis, along with 1605 ballscrews.
I've priced the bits from Zapp to get an idea of costs, but need to explore the other options.

As for the sides, I'm not sure whether to go for 15mm or 20mm thick plate. Price wise there's not too much difference, but will there be much difference in stiffness?


I'll try and get some time this week to get some drawings done in Sketchup.