Hi everyone,

I am starting to put together a hybrid own design machine. It has an 18mm slab ply frame. Overall dimensions 500 x 400 x 550 high.

Moving table size 230 x 340mm supported on 20mm diameter silver steel beams.

The design is the subject of several iterations as I have realised (designing in AutoCad), that there might be a "better way" to achieve certain objectives.

For instance I was going to secure the horizontal 16mm diameter Y axis bars directly to the ply frames but have now opted to add an inner 12mm aluminum skin and bolt the bars to that.

Obviously the inner skin won't cover the whole ply surface (far from it!) but it will perform two functions - it will help to hold the ply frame exactly square at the rear corners and, when I decide to go for a open frame all metal design, I will re-use these as my vertical frames. I will be incorporating additional fixing holes at the base for this future design.

Why not just go for the open frame all metal design I hear you ask? Well the reason is that I have been tweaking this design for so long I actually need to DO SOMETHING other than redesign!

Regards,

Barry

PS Might need some help with the driver software but this is not the forum area for that!