[BuckingFastards]

Hi Everyone i have been wanting to build a cnc router for the longest while now but still havent taken the plunge to do so. I am looking for the most cheapest way to build a quality router am trying to keep the price of the router it's self under $500 (not including software) so that $500 will include the router, the stepper motors, the powersupply, the driver boards and everything else that will have to be included. So i was thinking for me to keep this router cheap is this a good way to go:

Gantry Router

So if you don't mind can you give me the pro's and con's of this disign.

P.S. i need portability so i was thinking the legs could collapse into themselves something like a drawer slide. So it would be easy to move around and make the z axis adjustable so i can put it at different levels.Yeah so just wondering do you think its possible to build for under $500 and if so is this a good way to do it.

Thanks in advance

[joecnc2006]

to be honest with you i think you will be hard pressed to pull that off, just motors, controllor and power supply will be min of 300.00, then all the other parts would cost even more. unless you have some freebies. just a JGRO cost people more than that.

[BuckingFastards]

O yeah i forget to mention i will not be using ballscrews to make the axis move i will be using a timing belt with some gear reduction and using skate bearings to slide on metal or wood so that will hopefully keep the price down and the materials are not included in that price i was just thinking $500 for steppers, controller, and power supply of course i can go a little over $500 but i would like to stay under it because the software is going to the thing that is really going to break my bank.

And if the motors, controller and power supply would be a minum of $300 then i should have nothing to worry about staying under $500 and i really dont need to get the router tool its self out of $500 i can get it at a later date but do you think it will be possible and do u think its a good design?????

[ger21]

It looks like you'd get way too much flex. If you read enough posts here, you'll find that everyone is always trying to figure out a way to support the rails. Unsupported rails will flex, and flexing rails does not make for a quality machine.

[BuckingFastards]

well i was thinking about constucting it out of plywood or metal and creating like a box shape if you look at the picture you will see how his legs to his router is in a box kind of shape and creating a box to go around the box so it would be a box in a box (one box would be bigger than the other so one would be inside the outer box) and using that instead of rods and have skate bearings so they can roll it is very difficult to explain as you can allready see, i have a little sketch from solidworks that i done when following the tutorials hopefully this will let you understand and that is what i will have instead of rails: