Strike CNC (My first CNC router)

[Shinobiwan]

Ok first I appologize, I made it sound worse than was intended.! I've got a canny knack of pointing out or saying truths "some" Dont want to hear.!! (Mainly the ones selling the machine) But seen as your ok with it then I'll point out the things I think are not Ideal.

No problem, I wish I'd known about this place back when I first started looking around. Nothing wrong with a frank opinion, I'd rather have that than the marketing speak!

From my limited knowledge I can see your concerns about some of the decisions taken with the construction but whether this negatively affects the parts I intend to produce will only be realised once I start cutting. I think your right that I'll have to dial back the speeds significantly. I've been told rapids of 5000mm/m are to be expected but cutting will reduce this greatly and I imagine 1500 upto possibly 2000mm/m with a 1/4" DOC in MDF will be about the limit. I'm more concerned about acceleration because I'll be doing a lot of detail work where this is more important than traverse speeds. Wondering how much things will jerk around with higher settings, probably quite a lot by the sounds of it sadly.

Tho it's not easy to see from the pics I get the feeling the Y Axis top gantry cross brace is just a piece of Aluminium plate with the rails bolted onto to it for support.? Say this because cant see any slots that would be present if it was wide profile.!! . . . If so then with that heigh/width gantry combo at this width of machine then it needs bracing up more IMO.
Don't like the ratio between gantry height and gantry side width, the bearing spacing hisn't very much. Yes it's driven from both sides but the height and width don't gel nice and if like I belive the gantry cross piece is just Ali plate with no bracing and just relying on the rails for support then flex will show when cutting hard or deep.!!. . Again restricting DOC & FR.

It does look like alu plate that forms the gantry but its alu extrusion. I'm not sure about the exact dimensions but it looked like about 160mm x 30mm or possibly 160x20mm.

The frame under the bed hisn't supported enough with just one central support for this wide a machine IMO.

This was a concern of mine in recent days since I started looking at some of the DIY builds on here - much more substantial beds. I can't see an easy way of bracing it more thoroughly though, especially in the direction parallel to the gantry, because the ball screws are in the way make a decent and useful cross section of bracing impossible to fit in there.

Not a major issue but not keen on them little nema23 motors spinning 25mm ballscrews, they are going to be working over time with the extra inertia of 25mm ballscrews.!

I was led to believe these are nema28 on the x and y with 4Nm rating. However when I do a good search for nema28 I get nothing. Only nema23 and 34 return useful results. Unsure now.

On another note I also think the bullk of the cost of this machine would have been the Cabinet enclosure.??

The enclosure was £600 extra so nearly an 1/8th of the price.

Like Routercnc I would be interested to know the spec of the drives control box etc.! . . . Also the price if your up for sharing.??

I feel some what stupid because I have no idea about the electronics aside from the specs I was given(these are in the original post). The machine was the first of its kind with the enclosure so I agreed to have them take some pictures for marketing purposes and got it cheaper. They're selling the same machine with hiwin rails all around (mine is only on the Y) and possibly some more upgrades including the electronics for £6999.

Hope you have good fun when it arrives and I'm sure you'll enjoy it..

I'm sure I will and thanks.