welding steel base or just getting aluminium extrusion

[JoeHarris]

Honestly mate those pieces do not need CNC?! Just a drill press and a saw. I would spend you money on a bandsaw and a drill press which you will need later anyway and tell those guys where to go! If you by ecocast it is flat enough and if you take your time you can be plenty accurate enough without a CNC machine??


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[reefy86]

cheers mate, this was a quote i asked for before you guy's advised on doing the methods you suggested, it just came through this morning and i almost spat my coffee out lol.

[mekanik]

[QUOTE=JoeHarris;98003]Honestly mate those pieces do not need CNC?! Just a drill press and a saw. I would spend you money on a bandsaw and a drill press which you will need later anyway and tell those guys where to go! If you by ecocast it is flat enough and if you take your time you can be plenty accurate enough without a CNC machine??


+1

[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.

[reefy86]

This is how i was thinking until Dean mentioned that its all good in a cad program but in real world it does not work that way. i was making my machine as tight and solid as possible in solidworks and had in mind that i will order these parts the same dimensions as solidworks and all will be ok, kjn have a tolerance of +/- 0.5mm now my gantry will have 2x 80x160mm in a l shape but how much of a problem will i have if one of those extrusions was - 0.5mm and the other was + 0.5mm.

edit.. more then likely i am way overthinking lol but thats my mind being ocd and following how lovely and neat my cad drawing is :)

[Desertboy]

This is how i was thinking until Dean mentioned that its all good in a cad program but in real world it does not work that way. i was making my machine as tight and solid as possible in solidworks and had in mind that i will order these parts the same dimensions as solidworks and all will be ok, kjn have a tolerance of +/- 0.5mm now my gantry will have 2x 80x160mm in a l shape but how much of a problem will i have if one of those extrusions was - 0.5mm and the other was + 0.5mm.

edit.. more then likely i am way overthinking lol but thats my mind being ocd and following how lovely and neat my cad drawing is :)

This is very important! If using KJN aluminium to cut your extrusions you must have the pieces cut on the same day at the same time. They can offer a very high degree of repeatability but not if they have to reset the machine.

How accurate are KJN cuts I just had cut my MDF bed cut to 135.1cm *100cm based on my cad models and it dropped into place perfectly so I'd say at least for me there cuts were very accurate. I also had them cnc drill holes in my frame so I could assemble it with m12's instead of corners.