DDM - all good resposes so far for your question - Have you poked your nose into the "Design Center?" There's a link there to a site that sort of summarizes the styles of system design http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...&threadid=4080
If you're looking Big table - thats heaps of space to handle the footprint of the machine and motors to move the material - might consider a "low profile gantry" that moves with most of the mass close to the plane of the x axis rails. Sorta like "System2" in the photo gallery -
cheers - Jim
Experience is the BEST Teacher. Is that why it usually arrives in a shower of sparks, flash of light, loud bang, a cloud of smoke, AND -- a BILL to pay? You usually get it -- just after you need it.