Hi everyone, I just want to share my progress in rebuilding the infamous 2418 kit I bought for Christmas, it was a great way to learn the basics but for the machine is a joke really, can barely engrave soft materials. So I decided to rebuild it keeping the same dimensions and structure.

At the moment the top part (gantry) is pretty much done, I used 2080 extrusions for side pillars and 4060 for rail supports. The carriage and Z are a contraption of aluminum angle profiles and sheets, heavily inspired by Jeremy Schmidt's design (you can look it up on YouTube). Rails are sbr12, leadscrews 8mm with axial supports.
Spindle is 250w brushless for the moment, but the structure allows an easy upgrade to 65mm water-cooled spindle in the future.

It all turned out way more rigid than I anticipated, now the question remains how to construct a new bottom frame (to get rid of plywood base) and join them reliably. I was thinking of using a bunch of 2040 profiles with angle reinforcements, any suggestions? The table will move on sbr12 rails and will most likely use 15180 profiles for working surface, total working area planned 230x300mm

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