Hi
I'm James Mitchell, a 47 year old computer programmer from South Africa. Thanks for all the great info here on myCNCUK! Decided to take the plunge and and build a rigid CNC router exclusively for cutting aluminium parts. I have a 2.1m x 1.4m x .15m commercially build router that I have been running for the last 5 years and I need (no, want :-) ) something better for machining aluminium. Something like a Datron M75 would be first prize but that's never going to happen so my specs/ideas for the build are something as following:

Cutting area: 600mm x 450mm x 150mm.
Linear guides & ballskrew (I have Hiwin 15HGH 900mm, 750mm and 350mm rails & blocks and 4 x Chinese 1605 ballskews so I'm going with that)
Expected performance: Speed is not a great issue and I'd be very happy with 4000mm/min rapids with decent acceleration and hopefully 1000 - 2000mm/min for cutting.
I'm really hoping for great accuracy and repeatability. Not sure how to quantify but lets say <0.2mm tolerance on smaller parts
Construction will be steel or Alu
Weight is not a big issue as I plan to use decent sized motors and drivers.

I'm a bit in information overload mode at the moment and I'm having a hard time deciding on a good design. Fixed gantry or moving gantry etc but I'll start asking specific questions later.

Thanks
James