Jeff's 1000 x 800 Gantry Router Design & Build

[Kitwn]

Jeff,
Looks good so far, you've obviously put a lot of time and effort in already.

The most obvious weak point you will get picked up on is the gantry. That single piece of upright profile may be too flexible. The current preferred and proven design would have another piece laid horizontally below the one you already show. This will give you much greater rigidity in all directions on the beam itslf and make the fixing of the end plates more rigid. There are pictures of this in various places on the forum.

The only other piece of advice I would offer, especially for a hobby builder with a budget, is to check the standard sizes of materials you can get or if your supplier will do cut lengths. I had a problem with suppliers in Perth, Australia only being willing to supply whole 6m lengths of aluminium sections. This is a real problem if your design only wants 2m of one size or 6.2m of another.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Kit

[JeffZ]

Thank you for your advice!

The most obvious weak point you will get picked up on is the gantry. That single piece of upright profile may be too flexible. The current preferred and proven design would have another piece laid horizontally below the one you already show. This will give you much greater rigidity in all directions on the beam itslf and make the fixing of the end plates more rigid. There are pictures of this in various places on the forum.

Something more like this?


Or, if I want to keep the current gantry height:

The only other piece of advice I would offer, especially for a hobby builder with a budget, is to check the standard sizes of materials you can get or if your supplier will do cut lengths. I had a problem with suppliers in Perth, Australia only being willing to supply whole 6m lengths of aluminium sections. This is a real problem if your design only wants 2m of one size or 6.2m of another.

Fortunately the supplier I currently have in mind offers to (roughly) cut to size for a reasonable price.

[Kitwn]

Thank you for your advice!



Something more like this?


Or, if I want to keep the current gantry height:




Fortunately the supplier I currently have in mind offers to (roughly) cut to size for a reasonable price.

Thats exactly the idea though I think most of the drawings you will find on the forum use the same size section for both pieces. Whether that is for simplicity or there's a sound reason to do with equal strength in both planes I don't know.

Kit