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

[Jonathan]

I wasn't sure if I should put this in the mill or router cattagory, so I've been ambitious and put it in mill since I'll be using it for metals.

Progress so far...
Base - check
X-rails - check but need rotating I think
Z-axis - got the bits
Y-axis - in progress

Today the 900mm/600mm supported 20mm linear rails and bearings arrived from Hong Kong. Barely adequate packaging caused the bearing blacks to be skuffed, negligible really. Seller despatch very slow but DHL very fast.

Also the 20mm aluminium plate for the X/Y axis arrived. It's certainly heavy stuff!

I went to a small local metals supplier and picked up a meter of 80x3mm aluminium box section for the Y rails to mount on, along with 1m of 3"x1"x0.25" alu angle since it was cheap and looked handy for mounting stepper motors and stuff. Also picked up (barely) a piece of 4"x2" steel channel for the gantry sides. Two meters far £10 and it's heavy stuff :)


I'll post some more pictures soon. Here a couple of the base and X/Y/Z axis' I made which will not be used for obvious reasons...

Drawing....disregard the plywood gantry sides as above.


Frame without top 18mm MDF sheet. Screws are M20x2.5


Didn't want to be spinning those 2m long screws, so antibacklash nut placed between two tapered roller bearings. Those pine side bits are temporary until I make aluminium ones.


Er, not much here....am I right in thinking I should rotate the X rails by 90°? At the moment the bottom one possibly doesn't really do much?


Old Z-axis ... ditched that plywood idea! Do note the alternative to a nut i'm using for the drive on the screw though - bearing. More on that later.


Mount for stepper on Z-axis (will still use this) and screw. Note thrust bearing etc...