[Zorbit]

Excellent thread, I'm enjoying it.

Have you considered a nutating head ? I have one on a 5 axis Morbidelli ( also HSK63F ), it's rigid and compact.

[jono5axe]

Hi there. Is that an available package? If so, where from? What is that spindle? What is the Z travel on that machine? I had only seen flat panel Morbidelli machines, but that is obviously something different than a flat panel router.

Yes, I did consider that head format, pros & cons etc. I think recall that the main advantage (45 degrees) was being able to get in a bit tighter on the workpeice in some situations, which increases the machining envelope of a given machine (?). As I am not experienced at motion control I decided to go with (what seemed to me) the simpler 90 degree setup. It also seemed that there was more information out there for me to use if I run into setup/software/programing problems. I will make up some sort of IP67 bracket arm, maybe from composites, or just aluminium profiles. The 90 degree setup is also quite straight forward to locate the servos in the assembly using belt drives onto the harmonic drives.

But please let me know if there is some major advantage with the 45 degree setup. As I say, I had to make a decision from a fairly uninformed start point, so I did a bit of research and came to a (moderately) informed decision.....

I have the spindle, harmonic drives & servos already, based on a 90 degree setup. They were sized on calculation, starting with the torque I wanted in the harmonic drives (torque on the tool tip) and then comparing/checking what the big name machine suppliers use. I think I based my calcs on each axis being able to get through (rapid) 360 degrees in 1.0 second. A lot of the machines that I have seen cutting in simultaneous 5 axis mode seemed to be limited by slow A & C axis movement, and I wanted better than that. But it will only be proved in the pudding, of course.

[shedbob]

Hallo jono
Very interesting and ambitious project here.The scale is impressive.
On epoxy leveling ukcnc seems to be the forum where epoxy leveling is the go to method.Those builds go into considerable detail.
If I recall accurately this build has some good detail as a starting point.

BUILD LOG: A sufficiently strong machine

I wish you good problem solving on this project.
Robert.