[One of Many]

I ran into a freebie.....complete Parker X,Y,Z slides,stepper motors and drivers package a few month back. The travels are 18"x18"x 12. The plan is to have 1/2" subplate under the table slide as the base to bolt the uprights for the gantry. The gantry was built extra tall to allow for shifting the 3/4" subplate mounted Y-axis slide up 4" to get more Z occasionally. Most of the time the Z will only travel 8" to keep things rigid. I may key the Y subplate to the uprights along with dado the rear brace as well. My fear is a weak point where the uprights bolt to the table subplate. I was thinking of adding strong back supports to the outsides of the uprights, but thought that might be overkill.


I figured I would post this up here and see if anyone can tell me if the strength in 3/4" aluminum plate on this stationary router design would present any hidden problems I may have missed. I have seen some of the box gantry designs in MDF, so this is somewhere one step above them in material strength only. As long as it doesn't ring like a bell under cutter chatter. The materials cut could be from pink insulating foam to brass.

I have the newest CNC4PC multi-board. Maybe those that have had success with using laptops could post the specs of what laptops could be used with the CNC4PC + Mach3 combination. Rather than being tide to a desk top machine.

For the most part, I just need to make the structure and assemble it. The circuit should be a simple. The software interface is another area I may be back for help on. Thanks for scoping it out!

DC