Steel/Aluminium design/build, sorta smallish, cuts ali hopefully

[mart154]

Ok, here we go!

Name's Mart and I come from lovely boring rural Suffolk. Well I come from Down Under before that but its another story altogether...


I've been lurking around here for a while now, gathering ideas after going thru about 10 different design iterations. So, after gathering some ideas, comparing them with my metal stockpile and aluminium prices online, I've done another one :)

What I'm trying to achieve is a machine with a quesstimated work area of around 800x600x300. Why these measurements. Well, first of all, I had a look at a workbench I have here and thought "this looks about the right size" :) Then I tried to optimize the measurements with the steel stock I hold in the junk pile. And well, it felt about right :)

I have hardly any experience with CNC other than just sending DWG-s to suppliers, so its a proof of concept if you like for a bigger machine in the future. And also, hopefully I can actually fabricate the bits needed for the bigger machine then :)

So. The frame is welded out of 50x3 and 20x2 box section (just because I have too much of it) It's probably a massive overkill (in some ways but weak in others), but well. The massive amount of 20x20 box is just because I have so much of it kickin about. The green bits on the drawing, on top of the frame are 60x6 flatbars, stitch welded to frame to provide something more solid to mount the rails on.

Gantry is 120x5 aluminium box section. End plates are 15mm ali. Rails are planned SBR16. Ball screws 1610 for X and Y and 1605 for Z.






What else. Cheap 3Nm steppers. Haven't decided yet on direct drive or belts. Have no idea about drivers/PSU-s :)
Somehow I managed haggle myself Thisl from Zapp. Don't even know if it works but I got it free :)

Spindle. About 2Kw ish, China .


So, some quick pictures. I swapped computers lately and for some reason I can't open my z axis or drive assemblies. But I'll work on it and hopefully get more decent design up tonight.






All help would be appreciated, as I feel kind of stubid about these machines :)

Regards,
Mart