[ericks]

That's a very good point, thanks. I've had a look and it appears that there are 6 carriages and there should be a couple of metres of rail that look untouched by rust so I'll see if the boss will let me have it and I'll make it work on the gantry. I'll still have round rails on the table and Z-axis but they can be upgraded at a later date. I'm hoping that after plug welding the gantry will be flat enough to work with the profile rails; if not, I can probably work out a way to machine it here at work.

I like your build! What size steppers are you going to use?

[jones]

I like your build! What size steppers are you going to use?

Thanks! I've got a set of 3 - 440 oz-in bipolar 3.5A Nema 24 steppers for the project, though I also have a 180 oz-in Nema 23 that I was going to use for the Z axis when I was building a plasma cutter... I think I'll just go with the 440 oz-in motors all round and save the little one for another project.

I also have a Gecko G540 and Ethernet Smoothstepper to control it all. I wanted to get as close to plug-and-play as possible after my last CNC build used chinese drives and a cheapy parallel breakout board. It worked but I eventually upgraded to Gecko's and it was a big improvement, I'm hoping the smooth stepper will make it even better.

[ericks]

Thanks! I've got a set of 3 - 440 oz-in bipolar 3.5A Nema 24 steppers for the project, though I also have a 180 oz-in Nema 23 that I was going to use for the Z axis when I was building a plasma cutter... I think I'll just go with the 440 oz-in motors all round and save the little one for another project.

I also have a Gecko G540 and Ethernet Smoothstepper to control it all. I wanted to get as close to plug-and-play as possible after my last CNC build used chinese drives and a cheapy parallel breakout board. It worked but I eventually upgraded to Gecko's and it was a big improvement, I'm hoping the smooth stepper will make it even better.

Sounds good....yes the first thing i did when i got my 6040 was to dump the cheap stepper drives, VFD and water cooled spindle. Six years later all good except my Homann Designs breakout board packed up when i had a floating earth. Ethernet is something i might upgrade to if/when my older pc dies. I am currently using a 5 axis cheap breakout board in my 6040 must say i am very impressed, however not using the pwm part of it....i did test it a while back it wasn't working very good. Guess you can't expect much for $9

[ericks]

You are doing great work mate!!