Well when you're snowed in for a week and nothing else to do it sure gives you plenty of time to design new stuff. This is my latest creation, a whole slew of stolen ideas from here at the Zone!! The main gantry beam is to be of 80/20 size 3060. I couldnt find a Sketchup model of that particular size so I just drew it as a solid beam but it is actually 3060. I ran the deflection caculations and with a width of 60" (more than mine here) and 3060 in size with a load of 50 lbs the total downward deflection was .001 and Y direction was a little more at .005. Both numbers are good to me and Im waiting to talk to the good folks over at 80/20 to see if they can help me take cutting forces into effect but it looks like a single piece of 80/20 is going to work fine for this new design. I did the numbers at 50lbs but I dont think it will be that much, maybe.
The Z slide is shamlessly taken from the Mechmate design so it should be good to go. The sliding Z plate will of course have to be machined flat and true but thats minimal.
I was going for a really light, streamlined design without a lot of unnecessary parts. Im getting there but I keep looking at this thinking there could still be an easier way. Thoughts?
As usual please look it over and see what you think, comments suggestions please!!