Reducing the space in my garage.

[Rich]

Table design using dexion and images of the build so far.

The front plate of the z-axis is currently made from 2 x 3mm aluminium plate. The final build will separate these two plates, increasing stiffness and absorbing vibration., I will use sheet ply and a vibration dampening material.

[EddyCurrent]

If this version 1 will suite your requirements why build version 2 ?
If you think it might not suite your requirements then go straight to verison 2 now. After reading your post I would go straight to version 2.

[Rich]

Thanks Eddy. I did give that issue some thought. I decided to factor in my own in-experience and concluded that I would carry on building this slightly fragile machine first. I may need to cut plate aluminium in the future, hence the need for v.2.

Spent last evening reading the support offered by Gecko: http://www.geckodrive.com/support/st...or-basics.html . It offered a very helpful understanding of why unregulated supplies are preferrable i.e. motors behaving as alternators. On a three axis machine, using 4 x 3.1Nm motors (CNC4YOU) in parrellel, the numbers appear to be 11.088 amps and 57.25 volts. The numbers on power requirements will need double checking, they seemed low.

Anti-backlah Nuts
Is this a good buy: http://www.damencnc.com/en/component...--spindles/101

I was originally looking for something that worked with a Tr10 x 3, but I have been unable to find a workable solution, other than the MDL-2-TR 10x2D Special Nut, sold by Merchant Dice:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CNC-Z-Axis...item483f9663e7

[EddyCurrent]

Igus do these, I expect them to be top quality coming from them

http://www.igus.co.uk/wpck/2371/dryl...zgewindemutter

On a four axis machine, using 3.1Nm motors (CNC4YOU) in parrellel, . . .

Did you mean a 3 axis machine with 4 motors ?

[Rich]

Lol - yes, I'll edit. Thanks for the link!

[Rich]

Spent last week tidying up the gantry, fitting flange bearing and reading, mostly about stepper motors:

http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/an907a.pdf
https://www.mpja.com/download/18304ms.pdf
http://www.haydonkerk.com/Portals/0/...uators_101.pdf
http://www.selene.co/Blog/2011/08/se...motor-winding/
http://www.micromo.com/microstepping...-and-realities

The aim was to understand how the choice of motor i.e. chopper motors, effects the design of the circuit. Without the depth of knowledge to fully understand everything I have read, there where a number of points I need to carried forward:

(1) Motors can be driven at between 10-24 times there specified voltage. Increasing the multiplier will increase the stiffness of the motor.
(2) A motor is most effective when is it operating within the 'slew' range of the speed torque curve.
(3) Micro-stepping increasing the machines efficiency at the expense of the available holding torque.

The last point is important as it helps limit my expectation of micro-stepping i.e. it won't make up for accuracy lost within the design or the build ) I would imagine this last point is reflected in the 'motorcalcs' spreadsheet, which includes a significant safety factor?

[EddyCurrent]

The last point is important as it helps limit my expectation of micro-stepping i.e. it won't make up for accuracy lost within the design or the build ) I would imagine this last point is reflected in the 'motorcalcs' spreadsheet, which includes a significant safety factor?

From what I've read, 1/8 microstep seems to be the most popular and is a good starting point, that's what I use anyway and it's working fine.