Redesign...Steel is now Extrusion

Hey guys

Having gone back to the drawing board I looked at what materials my future machine would be cutting and id say less than 10% of the use of the machine would be for ali work(Machine will predominately be used for plastics, wax, Woods and foams)... So with that in mind I redesigned a machine with a slightly increased budget, and that can be made without any welding :D

I have seen numerous amounts of people all over the internet with similar designs though only a few with 16mm aluminium plate at the ends of the Y axis. Seems that most extrusion orientated machines are nearly all extrusion.

Anyway...let me know what you think...Be aware i have yet to add the cross bracing :)

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Hi Flyhigh,

Machine looks nice, I also went for plates at the end of the bed. I like how you extended those to also be the feet, on mine i just went with a full rectangle but i like yours more, i'm thinking an additional foot in the middle would also look nice too.

I cant help thinking that a length of extrusion the same as the ones on the Y would serve you better on the gantry rather than those two individual lengths of 40x40?, sure you would need to move the screw forward or back to do that but I much prefer the one solid length over the screw postion.

Cross Bracing
Given its light duty requirements i would be inclined to add two more lengths of the same extrusion either side of the screw, then you should be able to connet the lower parts of the side plates at the bottom, to each other. Giving you a nice place to mount the nut/nut mount too.

Attached is a screen shot of the machine I originally designed put into CAD for me by a friend, I dont think I will be building it exactly the same now, as I have learned allot since then but you can see how its quite similar to yours, the extrusion was 80x80 and not featured in its entirety.

.Me

Hey Lee,

Yeah, I redesigned this one since steel was nice but allot more fiddling about with the design and having to do different things to avoid resonance which seems cant be escaped from when using a steel machine so decided on an aluminium design where resonance isnt as much of an issue at all and also no Welding!!! The only downside here is big fat aluminium sheets but that adds allot haha.

Well I have spoke to Dean(Jazzcnc) who has been helping me with this design. He also pointed out the gantry...so I will be using 120x40 extrusion for the gantry and shifting the motor,ballscrew assembly behind the gantry since that wont affect the cutting area :)

Cool stuff,

I new i had seen something like what i was suggesting before, here it is attached.... AND GUESS WHAT! its one of Jazz's machines.

http://www.mycncuk.com/attachment.ph...2&d=1325012413

.Me

Thats a very nice machine! Jeeez look at that gantry! he really does build em strong haha. He has been very helpful in the design of mine, exchanged my design files and iterations etc :)

Here is the current design of the gantry, the originalsides were 10mm ali but after Deans suggestion has now been changed to 16mm, like the machine ends. One thing im curious about is the location of the X axis ballscrew, I have positioned it behind the gantry...As you can see from the stepper mount location .With the z axis being more forward along the Y axis will this create any kind of torsion?


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This machine was designed just for cutting wood and soft materials, it does cut aluminium but it was never intended or design for that purpose. If you asked me to build a machine for cutting ali you wouldn't get this machine.!

One other thing which I did point out to you in an email is the gantry cross brace being "L" shaped, this is the Key to it's strength in resiting flex etc and giving best support with high sides. One thin single piece isn't enough to resist flex when cutting hard with highsides. Esp with single screw down centre.

Here's a differant machine to what Lee posted but built exactly same fully covered and finished.! . . . . . This is a single ballscrew machine but there's a larger twin screw version. (Also a smaller Baby version)

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Sorry that was next haha, I have a pukka with all the iterations you have suggested. I will repost once Im done with the iterations :)

cheers guys

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FlyHighRC

Sorry that was next haha, I have a pukka with all the iterations you have suggested. I will repost once Im done with the iterations :)

cheers guys

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FlyHigh, what happend next ?

.Me