Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Charlie there is no cutting corners when it comes to having high quality finish in Ali. The machine needs to be Strong and Dense which by nature of the beast means heavy and when talking large format like 8x4 gets very heavy and expensive quickly.! . . . . Rush into this without good design and you'll regret it trust me.!
My machine quickly made me spend a lot of money. Initial plan was 1300x1300. making it full will cost around 2k more, including materials and parts. Maybe even a bit more. I knew that from the beginning and decided its worth the effort.

Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Boyans machine is strong and heavy but nothing special in it's design, Even if he think's it is.! . . . However he's correct that no point trying to re-invent the wheel so if you havent got room to go vertical then stay with conventional design and just build it strong.
Not that the machine is sth original in it self. We have seen similar and i have been inspired from similar.
But i believe that still there are really a couple of Great things about the design:
-$ per performace and generally all was optimized to save cash from here and there
-ability to DIY at home with only cut off saw and Mig gun.
-absolute minimum of milled or laser cut parts
-no vibrations, yes it gives the thump sound when hit with a hammer , not the ring sound
-Z axis is absolutely my original design with lowest overhang i have seen around and even ignoring the aluminum spindle enclosure machine will perform similarly. In other words this design removes the need of double gantry type machines, as they will not add sth very benefitial on the table, when both compared

The most special thing was that i did not do any mistakes so cost was as expected :-) and the performance met my expectations.

I still want to see a DiY machine that weights 800kg, has a work area of 1300x2600x200 and mills in steel with Z fully extended without ringing and perfect finish with 3kw spindle. Ok,will stop bragging, its obvious that i love my machine

Of course it couldn't have been able to happen without the help of others, Dean and Johnathan mainly.