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

[Desertboy]

20mm I will heed that advice ;)


I will use 2 of these for my z axis slides and a 20mm ground ballscrew. I have another 2 of these coming as well not sure what I will do with them but maybe make a spare z axis as one of my first projects ;)

just playing with the gantry at moment but I do wonder if I can fit the gantry like this?

I would worry that the ballscrew is balanced properly I would think the ballscrew needs to go dead centre of the slides? I have come up with 3 choices for the gantry

1. Mount it like pictured with ballscrew at top, hiwin sideways on
2. Double up the extrusion so I use 2 pieces one on top of the other then the ballscrew can go in the middle with hiwin either side.
3. Put the Hiwin on the top and bottom of the gantry and have the ballscrew sideways on. This is my favorite choice but added complexity in the z axis mount. I would think this would also keep the slides cleaner orientated this way.

Or I do have this


But would rather not cut it if I can as it's 3.5m length and I have 2 5 ft lenghts so I only need 1 more and I can build a frame with working area just over 8*4.

Was worried as the bearing was not sitting straight on the supported rail but tried a different bearing and all is good then realised someone has been playing with my bearing (Joys of sharing workshop space with my dad's monkeys as I call them) and tightened the grubscrew.


Something I considered was filling the cavities inside the gantry aluminium extrusion with epoxy resin something that's stronger than steel but lighter have a friend who knows a lot more about epoxy's and has access to stuff I couldn't get easily so will have to have a chat with him.