Hello all,

I want to have for my first build an all rounder, to be able to use it for large sheets or small wooden, plastic or aluminium jobs as well as big light foam. So I ended up with a design without a raised gantry, and everything independent from the table. I don’t have the table design yet. Maybe I will have one side of the machine fixed to the wall. I plan to have a table for max. 10-15 cm thickness and one close to the floor for big foam works. In the future I plan to add a rotary axis and/or B/C head.

I will have a maximum travel of: X axis 1350mm; Y axis 1070mm and Z axis 650mm. I estimated the gantry weight without spindle at about 85kg and I think that’s heavy and a problem for me. I don’t have now the money for 7A drives but only for the DIY drives based on the THB6064AH chip (4.5A 50VDC) and I want to get some 4A, low inductance, 3-4Nm, nema34 steppers (to be upgraded) and will see if and at what speed I will have my gantry moving.

It was easier for me to draw the plans in 2D and I hope you will understand them.

Some details: the main frame (dark grey) is made of welded rectangular steel tubes; the linear guides (dark red) are CNCRouterParts style but thicker (120x10 and 60x10), harder and precision ground; for the gantry 160x80 heavy aluminium extrusion (1.25m) and for Z axis 80x80 (1m) and I want to have enclosures for all axes to protect the screws and rails from dust.








I want to ask Jonathan and others who use the rotating ball nuts what screw diameter and thread recommend. I would have been happy with the 20mm diam. and 10mm pitch but Chai has only 1605, 1610, 2005, 2505 and 2510. I think that 2005 is the best choice for Z but for X (1.6m) and Y (1.25m) will I be safe with the 1610 or I should go with 2510? If I go with the thicker I’ll need larger pulleys and longer timing belts which I don’t like.

Cheers,
Paul