Gantry's fine...


I've bunked off work for the afternoon to do some CNC design so I'll get those x-axis brackets beefed up a bit. I'm also swapping the ballscrew and stepper around inside the gantry (so the screw is at the top) that way the slot is further from the chips.

I've been reading a few posts of yours regarding aluminium machining. I'm going to have a crack at using my circular saw to cut most of the pieces and then clean up with a router bit. I've tried routing aluminium in the past but only 5mm sheet. It went well but I'd agree with you it was scary at first.

I was also having a read up on pulleys. I've got 9mm 16 tooth on there at the minute but I think I'll upgrade them to 15mm 20 tooth (all HTD5). Will a 15mm pulley (like this) mount cleanly onto the shaft of a typically 3Nm stepper? I'm just a little concerned because the L dimension on the pulley is 26mm and the shaft of the stepper seems to only be 16 to 24mm long depending where I look.

P.S. Bloomin' love this design by the way. Once I have my workshop built I think there might have to be a bit of creative copying for CNC number 2