New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area

[Desertboy]

Bought 2 1m ballscrews now so I have

A strong aluminium frame 1.6m*1m made with heavy duty profile
2 supported rail 25mm slides (With new bearings) will cut to 100cm
2 linear rails with sliding blocks (HWin) 1500mm long with 4 blocks
1 Ballscrew 1400mm long RM1605
2 ballscrews 1000mm RM1604
The fittings for the ballscrews, motor couplings, etc.
Most of a z axis (25mm smooth rod & bearings, 20mm ground ballscrew travel 20cm) I will need to decide how much travel I need and cut down and machine to fit.
2 nema 23 motors (I have these working)
Arduino Uno, CNC shield
Nema 23 mounting plates
Probably more stuff


The budget has been taken outside like old yellow and a bullet has gone in it's head. I am now working on a budget that I bought an xcarve (Which I was seriously considering but in the end decided I could build something a lot better for a lot less and also the satisfaction of building your own and of course I have a lot more wiggle room for upgrading.

Now is the waiting game as I ordered cheap ballscrews from China to get it working (C7) this will be fine I'm sure for my first cnc. When I get some cash in (I already have some jobs for the cnc I outsource at moment.) I will upgrade the ballscrews, cover the frame in 5mm steel (The Y axis will get only 3mm to keep weight down). I also will swap the 2nd hand supported rail for new from zapp.

I now need a spindle but totally wiped myself out financially.

I have some work for this machine so when it does work I will use the money made to upgrade the machine (Looking at slides, ballscrews and electronics also encase frame in steel) and I need to build an 8*4 which will be for wood based products only.

[Greeny]

Looking like you're powering forward with the parts. She'll be cutting in no time ��

1605 &1604 ballscrews might be problematic though.
You're going to have to gear them to spin very quickly to get any reasonable feeds for cutting mdf/wood.
You may experience problems with whip:
On the 1605 1400mm the calculated critical speed is about 1000rpm which equates to 5m /minute.
On the 1604 1000mm the calculated critical speed is about 2000rpm which equates to 8m /minute.

You may be happy with those feeds or may able to exceed the critical speeds, but just wanted to highlight it.


Cheers

[Desertboy]

Hi Greeny thanks for the reply,

This is my first CNC so making it up as I go along. I have a job to do with this machine (At moment I sub contract but am tied into a contract so have 3 months to finish this if I choose to fullfill it myself.) when it's done I intend to build an 8*4 rack and pinion machine for ply and beef this up to do harder materials. Mostly aluminium but occasionally a steel bracket (Mostly building more machines for me personally). I'm somewhere between home user and pro but I get a real kick out building it and am interested in the automation ;)

Like everyone on here I want at least 6 machines in the end 5 of them I will build ;)

3d printer (Already have)
cnc miller/router
cnc router 8*4
laser cutter
vacuum former (Have vacuum pump and air tank)
decent vertical wall saw

[Greeny]

Hi Desertboy,

Sounds good.
All the best with your build, will be watching with interest.

Cheers

[Desertboy]

Greeny out of interest how would you have drive this?

Also for 8*4 how would you drive it? I was thinking R&P for 8*4.

Originally I was going to try and drive this belt and pinion but I knew I was building something special so ballscrews seemed the only choice I want a very capable machine and I'll build the 8*4 for speed and production as 90% will be ply/mdf style products or real wood.

[Greeny]

Although i have a lot of experience using big cnc machines, I don't really have the building experience to offer good advice,
but as long as you bear that in mind here's what i would be looking into if i was thinking about a machine that size.

A ballscrew for the 4ft axis , either a 2010 or 2020. Nema 23 3nm.
The 8ft axis probably 2510 or 2520 fixed ballscrew with 2x rotating ballnuts and 2x nema23.
I would personally only consider R&P if budget can't stretch to rotating ballnuts as they are pricey.

Here's a few relevant threads you might like to peruse.

http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/3340-...n-ideas/page14
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/10219...tart-8x4-build
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/10865...concept-review

Hopefully someone with more building experience will chip in.
Cheers

[Desertboy]

China post is working efficiently at the moment the bearings came! 11 days from ordering! And we had no post since Friday so might have been quicker!


They slide super smooth after adjustment very happy with them making me rethink the supported rail for a larger machine as it's a lot cheaper than hiwin style rail and the accuracy will be fine for my purpose.


Hopefully the ballscrews which only went out today will be as quick ;) They will get import tax I'm sure. I've ordered a lot from china recently and a few things were over the limit but just but these screws are over £250 so bastards will screw me.

My 1.5m Hiwin rails came as well today ;) (Like xmas but better because it's stuff I actually want) I think the Hiwin rails are too small 15mm for the purpose but they were cheap and a decent length 1500mm with 4 carriages so I've gone with them to get it working and will get something more suitable in the near future. Will work exclusive wood based products until I change these and if I really need to do aluminium just doing it very slowly with a low cut height.


I'm already thinking though I should have spent another £150 on top and got 2 1.5m supported rails as I have 8 bearing blocks and the supported rail is stupid strong. (The printer I took it off have a sliding carriage that was over 400kg's and powered by a puny nema 23 lol.)

[BobenhamHotspur]

Hi
Are you aware of this CNC device http://www.maslowcnc.com/ ?