El Beast - Initial design phase, comments and critique welcomed!

[routercnc]

For raised X axis I mean something like these where the gantry is mounted directly on top of the X rails, which are themselves raised well above the level of the bed. The raised X axis can then be reinforced and made as stiff as you want. Often they are steel box section, which is x3 stiff as aluminium (like-for-like sizes). This avoids having the long drop down gantry side plates which will not be as stiff.

It is very difficult to overcome offsets by beefing up/reinforcing the connecting structure. Much better not to have the offset in the first place.



or



The example you choose still had gantry sides and the X axis rails were level with the bed so no real advantage and not what I would call raised X axis design.

Z axis swapped around looks good. I'm adding a pair of tram plates to my new machine so good to see it used on yours.

[njhussey]

Hi!

I can recommend the high (X or Y axis depending on what you call it!!) rail approach (my machine is the bottom photo) to give stiffness. My machine munches aluminium and I've even cut (I'll say tickled really) 6mm steel plate. I presume you're the same person who frequents (or possibly did as I've not been on there for a few years now) RcHeliAddict forum, I think the last time I was on there you were just testing your small FPV Quad you designed?

[Clive S]

(my machine is the bottom photo)

And mine is the top one. I to was recommended to go down that route

[Zeeflyboy]

Both very nice machines! No size envy here....

Were the frames DIY?

Yeah that was me - it was the vortex race drone that I was designing back then.

[njhussey]

Both very nice machines! No size envy here....

Were the frames DIY?

Yeah that was me - it was the vortex race drone that I was designing back then.

Ahh thought it was, I remember your fpv Eurofighter too...fantastic plane.

Yes, both were welded from scratch. Mine's now vertically mounted (well 85° to be precise) on another frame I welded up...

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

[Zeeflyboy]

I should learn to weld one day...


Cheers chaps - I'm off to scratch my head and think what I can do with the bed/frame design.

[Zeeflyboy]

Well I've been playing around with it, and unfortunately I'm just not going to be able to get the work size I want to work in the space I need if going with the raised gantry type design, at the moment the work area is more important to me than absolute rigidity.

That said, taking on board that feedback I will be tweaking the design a little to take the 15mm mounting plates higher up (thus making the gantry arms effectively 40mm thick until they leave the bed surface) and I can also move the gantry down by about 14mm and make it line up with the bottom of the z-axis without losing any clearance... I can also switch from 20mm plate to 15mm plate for the main bed which would allow me to drop another 5mm off the gantry height. All adds up!

Given that the current machine does a pretty decent job of aluminium already, I hope that the re-designed Z-axis and the significantly beefier gantry arms (current ones are 150mm wide and 15mm thick vs the new one at 250mm wide and 25mm thick will be more than sufficient for my needs while giving the larger work area I need.