1.7*0.74*0.4m Mill / Router building...

[Jonathan]

Well done Jonathan and good to see you up and running :-)

congratulations lad

Thanks, I'm glad it's working at last!

Splendid!!!! im surprised how fast its cutting

What feedrates do you/other people normally use with MDF? I looked it up and found the chipload should be about 0.3mm. That would mean with my router at 11500rpm (lowest) it needs to be fed at roughly 6.9m/min ... which is huge! I wanted to get it fast enough to make chips, not dust, and in doing so reduce wear on the cutter.
I accidently cut all the way through 18mm ply with 6mm cutter at 2m/min last night. The cutter survived but the finish was poor/wobbly.

thats a lot better than i would have thought :)
i had to try your scientific test, im getting about 0.03mm but i only have 120mm cutting space so your gantry sides were a good choice over plate

Er, I wasn't testing the deflection of the gantry sides - the DTI was stuck to the side and touching on the back of the Z axis. I'll see how much the gantry bends today.

My problem with the X motors is one of the nuts is stiffer than the other, and the screws are a bit bent. I put them under tension to remove the bend, however that doesn't help when the gantry gets to the end of the bed since there's no give in it and as a result it often stalls.

my double row A/C bearings have turned up so ill give them a try at some point but for now ill stick with 1500mm/min

Hmm, I thought 3600mm/min was tedious
Y is happy at 5000, maybe more - not tried. The backlash seems to have increased slightly on Y. It's now 1/2 a step - 0.012mm.
Z still works at 10000, and X seems reliable at 3600mm/min...but not at the end of travel.
I think my toroidial transformer is too small now I've got an extra motor.