New to Cnc

[JAZZCNC]

Hi,

If your wanting accurate then unfortunately it does cost a certain amount of money and the maker-slide system just isn't up to the task. It's Great for light duty work like 3D printers, plasma etc or even light duty wood machines but a machine to cut aluminium correctly and accurately is completely different ballgame.?

Save up and buy at least supported round rail has minimum or better still profiled linear rails, even second hand will be worlds apart from Maker-slide. Honestly you'll be sadly disappointed and out of pocket if go with this route.

Regards Belt drive then size of pulley has nothing to do with accuracy, that's more function of belt and pulley quality not size.
Pulley size or gearing ratio affects resolution and this is needs to be assessed and chosen dependant on machine use and detail quality required.

For cutting mainly aluminium then you don't need high speeds or feeds but will require higher resolution and torque so higher gearing ratio will be required.
Typical ratio for half decent resolution would be 3:1 minimum dependant on pulley sizes used.? . . .You'll certainly be using much smaller and much larger than 50T and infact 48T would probably be nearest to that. So has an example for a 3:1 ratio with small pulley using 16T and large 48T the pitch will be 26mm after the ratio and the resolution will be very low for cutting aluminium, you'll want 5mm or at most 10mm. The low resolution will mean even higher ratio will be needed this in turn means the motors will run very rough when cutting at slower feeds which are needed for aluminium due to them spinning very slowly, this affects quality of cut has it's no longer smooth.

Also by the time you have bought all the pulleys and belts the price difference between Chinese ball-screws and belt drive just makes it not worth the trouble.

Really not trying to spoil your plans here but if you take this route you'll be very disappointed.!! . . With result being you'll end up spending more to put right or cutting your losses and scraping the machine. . . . I've seen it Sooooooo many times just don't do it.

Priceless advice here.!!. . . .Save your money, spend the time researching other machines and buy the correct components from the start has this will payback 100 fold.!