Frank from manchester

[JAZZCNC]

here is an itial render of a frame without gantry yet but am i heading in the right direction? Rails are on top and bottom to aliviate chip build up.

any views are welcome

cheers frank

Hi Frank,

Well see few things that may cause you hassle but they are connected so could be easily sorted.!

The rails positioned like you have them will be quite hard to get on the same plane and parallel to each other.
Also the bed frame design with those 3 inner pieces going to the same point will cause stress in that area and would be hard to weld up and keep frame square and flat without heat distortion. It would also need more corner bracing

So I'd look to build the Bed frame off the machine has a separate straight forward bed design IE: Rectangle with perpendicular supports and diagonal corner braces to hold sqaure that bolts onto angled frame.
Then depending on how much clearance and cutting height you require I'd mount the rails directly on the bed or have them raised putting the raising material mounted on the bed. This will easily allow you to make sure the rails are on the same plane by either careful measuring or using Epoxy method, I'd suggest Epoxy.!
I'd then just have a shield to protect the bottom rail/bearings and ballscrews.

Regards the supporting frame then I'd build that in sections has well, something like these pics show. Bolting it together like this will help making it simpler with welding up but more importantly to setup and remove twist etc by shimming or adjusting bolts etc.


Hope this makes sense and helps.!

[mekanik]

Thanks for the sketch Dean, if i get round to it i will be going for the same size & format so will be following the thread with interest.

[shoeswith]

Hi

I think if your building your first router buy and read published plans it will be much easier even if you dont follow them. I built my first using solsylva plans. Solsylva CNC Plans~ Home Page The second one was built from open source but the plans gave me so much step by step help I had learnt loads by then and was more than ready. I know there are many others you should look for reviews. There are many shortcuts such as buying whole pre-manufactured axis's (such as the Z axis) which to be honest really speeds things up and gives much better results but of course they all add cost. Good luck