welding steel base or just getting aluminium extrusion

[Desertboy]

I had recesses on most of my plates which is why I had to have them cnc'd out I know Joe did it in his amazing thread with a router but that's beyond me lol.

I put recesses in my gantry plates so the extrusion sits 5mm into the plates (20mm thick plates) and I will do this on every router I ever build again, never seen anyone do it but I've took a lot of commercial magazine printers apart (my router is made from one) and their gantries are always recessed.

[reefy86]

wouldn't that make it awkward for adjusting though?

[reefy86]

ordered all my steel and paid for my new workshop unit ready to move in on the 5th of january so i am looking forward to sharing with you guys the progression especially from someone who knows naff all lol

[Desertboy]

wouldn't that make it awkward for adjusting though?

I can't adjust anything on my router lol, I'm relying on the quality of KJN aluminium (Extrusion) cutting and drilling and the quality of the plates my machine is made with. Also the straightness of aluminium extrusion.

Anything you can adjust is a potential failure point it's fine for you guys with better build quality than myself but for me if I can adjust it I can break it lol.

It's not quite true because I can home my Y axis independently to square the gantry.

[Nr1madman]

Omg! Crazy prices!
I recomend desertboys advice and ask forum members for help.
For reference I got all my plates milled, pocketed, tapped and ground for about £200. Material included. 15 and 20mm thick steel.
The guy was super nice so I basically paid for material cost in weight and a tap that broke during the job.
I was lucky to find a member on a forum locally in sweden :)

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[JoeHarris]

That is pretty much how I did my y axis with the rails onto extrusion.


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[mekanik]

I am getting the impression that you haven't done your basic research (ie wadding through the vast amount of information in the build logs) the epoxy leveling procedure and rail installation has all been well covered, and Boyan went into this when he started his build. you can't build an accurate machine without certain items(ie precision straight edge and square) no offense is intended by my comments.As Clive has said if you proceed as outlined in the video you will just duplicate any errors in the ally rail.
Regards
Mike

[Neale]

By the same token, the guy bolts his rails straight to the top of the extrusion. No particular reason to believe that this is any straighter than the side of the extrusion - the surface will be influenced by errors in the supporting components, etc. However, errors in work on the machine will be in depth rather than profile accuracy, so perhaps up-and-down errors are less important for a lot of work.

For a router intended for mostly work in wood or plastics, though, will the errors be significant? If you are going to be making sign boards, doing lettering, cutting out stand-alone shapes which do not have tight manufacturing tolerances, is it worth chasing the last micron? I'm not saying you should ignore any errors, but you need a sense of proportion here. If your ballscrew/ballnut/bearing assemblies give, say, 0.05mm backlash, how much better than that do you need to be in the supporting structure?

Steel is different - my own 1.8m support rails dipped by 1.5-2mm in the centre, which is why I used epoxy - but in practice, how accurate are these aluminum extrusions?

[Clive S]

Steel is different - my own 1.8m support rails dipped by 1.5-2mm in the centre, which is why I used epoxy - but in practice, how accurate are these aluminum extrusions?

I have built several router type machines with the heavy duty profile 90x45 with the L type gantry layout with the rails top and bottom with no issues. So in my conclusion they are fine for the majority of diy builds and work very well.

[reefy86]

Was just a thought after watching that video, i know i will be needing straight edges and engineer squares but most of these videos on youtube are just some guy pointing his camera at an engineer square and going up and down which lasts 20 seconds long lol. i am still reading on here and watching other people tips and tricks but all i can picture in my head is getting one rail on and have it as straight as possible on one side and bolt it down and then use the gantry to slide up and down to get the second rail inline and then bolt that down and then just use engineer squares against the aluminium beam and side plates to make sure thats square