Effect of Forces on Gantry Cross-Sections?

[JAZZCNC]

am i reading this right that mounting on steel box section is a no no?? if so how big of a problem are we talking here?

Depends which world you live in.? The theoretical or the real.!! . . . . . FFS wish folks would stop over complicating things.!!

Here's the real world deal.!! . . . Irving is absolutly correct that unless you can surface the two sides parallel and flat then you can't be 100% sure every things correct.! . . . BUT . . . This is true in one way or another for ALL the surfaces the rails mount onto whether they be 1 rail on top & 1 on front, or both on front etc and unless you can put these surfaces complete and assembled onto a milling machine and accurately machine all surfaces flat and parallel or perpendicular to each other then you are going to have to accept they will need some adjustment or tweaking.!!

How you do this will depend on the design But having the rails on 2 separate sections, no matter if that be profile, boxsection, ali plate will make very little difference and It's FACT that some shimming or filing or grinding will be needed to bring the rails into perfect alignment and parallelism either way.!

Now I'm not going to blow smoke up your arse's saying this is easy and quick because it's not and doing this takes patience and a lot of measuring and masses of time if you want good accuracy.!. . . BUT . . . If your just cutting wood,foam and bit of plastics then even box section will be close and with slight bit of clean up and shimming you'll be there in no time.!

I know it's hard if you haven't hands on experience of the forces cnc impart on frames and accuracy required but really for the application of mainly wood use then any of the designs shown here would be plenty strong enough.!! . . . For real meaningful Aluminium and steel work then all of them are not really up to it.!!

Don't fry your noddles trying to create the perfect flex free gantry for cutting woods etc because your just wasting braincells and time when it's not needed.!