Design Study: Rail Inline With Ball Screw

[Bravin Neff]

My current machine uses something similar. I was trying to get the gantry sides as stiff as possible, and make a good connection to the rails. Fitting the ballscrew in there as well was just convenient.

Haven't seen that before. Great job!

[Ger21]

I am surprised to read this. Granted, my machine is a little on the small side compared to many I see here, but it will fit on an 80" x 40" machine. The going shop rate is $60/hour near me, so I am counting on all the machining work coming in just a few hundred $. Given how much money people invest into designing and building their own CNC routers, I would thinking have the rail surfaces and mounting pads machined would be easy to justify.

In nearly 15 years of reading a majority of the DIY forums daily, I can count on one hand the number of people who have had their welded frames machined.
The reasons, as stated above, are probably that most people don't know where they could have it done, at a reasonable cost.

[Bravin Neff]

In nearly 15 years of reading a majority of the DIY forums daily, I can count on one hand the number of people who have had their welded frames machined. The reasons, as stated above, are probably that most people don't know where they could have it done, at a reasonable cost.

I am sure you are right. I have also noticed there seems to be very little overlap between the DIY CNC world and the commercial CNC world. I have worked and operated CNC machines my entire working life, but only have discovered the DIY world a few months ago. And now that I'm excited by it, I talk about it all the time with colleagues and customers, and I have yet to come across a single one of them that knows anything about it or who dabbles in it. I find that remarkable.