Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Hi Ollie,

Welcome, First good job on rejecting those that you did and you were spot on with your reasons.

Provided you have the skills and patience then it's possible to build quite a nice machine with the budget your thinking. However, it does take time and careful prep/design along with will-power not to rush out and buy stuff premature. From what I've seen so far with your research and decision making you seem to have the makings of successfull builder so with little help from us chosing the right components I'm sure you'll be fine provided your confident in your abilty's regards the actual building. Be honest with your self here because like most things which look easy there is more to it than appears.!

Good luck and don't be afraid to ask any questions you have, no matter how stupid they feel and DONT BUY ANYTHING WITHOUT ASKING or knowing it's 100% correct for your needs.


Thanks JAZZCNC, for the encouragement and words of warning.

I will ensure I don`t go on a spending spree without checking first.
My plan is to design the machine on Fusion 360 until it is going to definitely work as intended (this will take a while i think as I am new to the software). Once design has been finalised (and checked over on this forum) I will begin to gather parts and then get cracking on building it.

And now let the stupid questions begin.......

When beginning to draw up a design, is it better to find the sizes of linear rail and ballscrew that are readily available and size the frame to those existing components. Or just draw the machine out to the desired size and worry about those after?

Are Nema 23 steppers a good fit for a machine of this size, 1200mm maximum assuming a twin ballscrew design on the Y axis?


Is there a best practice order of design? Z axis first, gantry (X) first or any other methodology?


Enough questions for now I think.


Thanks

Ollie