My baby 15" x 15" machine

nope i have all the welding gear now, but i'm still struggling getting my design down in goolge sketchup and until i do this i dont want to start, plus the money i thought we were getting got swallowed up by other things :/ life sucks atm

cheer up cock. I agree with you wanting to get the design right before you start or buy things im in the same boat. Ive been desgining mine for months now, Ive just decided that i cant keep drawing ive just got to get on and try a bit lol. Im %90 there on design, the rest i can make up as i go along sucessfully im sure. Have you any sketches, plans etc to show, perhaps we could give you some input or a lift?

Attachment 7212
finally getting somewhere with sketchup, i wanna run this past you lot before i progress this further

the 2 small piece of box section are 25 x 50mm steel box and i'm hoping to mount the router straight to them with a bracket i will design later down the line..

what i want to check is that the rails are not too far away from the router.. the box section the rails are mounted on is 50 x 50mm steel so that puts the base of the rails 75mm away from the base of the router support

and also the piece that the ball screw is mounted to is 10mm. firstly can i easily cut through 10mm steel with a holesaw? as thats the only way i'm going to be able to cut it? if not is 10mm thick ally enough considering how close the box section will be either side to support it?

Wilfy

Swap your rails and bearing blocks round, put your blocks where your rails are now and have the rails move up and down with your Z axis.

Andy

there are no bearing blocks in that picture yet...

let me show you where i got up to last night, i'm not 100% happy with it as i'm not sure what kind of bearing block i'm having for the ballscrew and the size of it

Attachment 7214

Sorry thought the rails was on the front of the axis didn't realise is was the rear view.:stupid:

Put the blocks as low as possible and space them as wide in both ways as you can.

guys whats the difference between using BK or FK blocks for the ballscrew supports?

IIRC BK blocks allow you two mount them in two planes, perpendicular AND paralell to the screw. FK only allow mounting in 1 plane, paralell to the screw.

hmm i only acctually want to mount parallel with the screw, i've seen some bk blocks though with no holes to mount parallel

You've seen something like this:
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...zASIlIFuCNK-Xw

But I mean this type:
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...Z8-RTUSbeJz49z