To do or not to do, can it be done? MK4 drill steel.

[Oldtech]

Thanks for the feedback voicecoil, lots of talent on this site. When you said you were drilling I assumed a steel gantry because of the twisting issue, but what do I know. Yes I believe MK4 would be able to do it but I'm starting to think about the speeds I would sacrifice for other operations. I'm thinking about building a gantry across my fabrication table and doing some z axis experiments. Do you know of any practical guides on the torque delivery for various components, steppers, ball screws etc...?

[Voicecoil]

Thanks for the feedback voicecoil, lots of talent on this site. When you said you were drilling I assumed a steel gantry because of the twisting issue, but what do I know. Yes I believe MK4 would be able to do it but I'm starting to think about the speeds I would sacrifice for other operations. I'm thinking about building a gantry across my fabrication table and doing some z axis experiments. Do you know of any practical guides on the torque delivery for various components, steppers, ball screws etc...?

A large thick-walled aluminium box section can have considerable rigidity and weight-for weight won't be a long way off steel, however it won't have the torsional rigidity to cope with the sort of drilling you want to do, leastways not with a 1.3...1.4m long gantry. I'm only thinking of making something that will drill (sometimes) & tap (quite a lot) up to 8 or 10mm in aluminium or maybe 5...6mm in steel, larger holes would be milled out.
Stepper motors are nearly always listed by their size and torque (e.g. Nema34 8.5Nm), ball screws have their maximum static and dynamic axial load ratings listed in the data sheet by Coa and Ca, it's worth checking these as it would seem they can vary between manufacturers for a given size.