[thobin]

So I work for a Maintenance shop for a local school district. Over the past few years we have had the opportunity to update our equipment ( CNC and edge bander), as all government jobs go there is lots of red tape to get approval for equipment and can take a few years. We have started to use some pre laid up 5' x 12' countertop material that will not fit on your average high production CNC and have found getting a consistent square cut on out large table saw is almost impossible as the 5x12 tops are pushing 400lbs. We have tried a few different track saws with mixed results so we started to look into a beam saw as a solution. Only problem is with the way things are going economy wise, a dedicated tool that costs 80k for one operation is just not in the cards. So I have to build something that will do what we need and keep it under 10k. I have a few question that google seems to have no answer for.

I can't find any linier rails that are 14 feet long and I'm not sure I want them that long as I don't think they would get to us strait, so can the rails be butted end to end and still have the linear bearings roll on them smoothly?

I will only need to move the X and Z axis via stepper, the Y will be moved by hand and located by set blocks of some kind. So the X axis has a long way to travel, 14 feet about so a lead screw is to cost prohibitive and I don't think it would work cause of sag. Belt driven would work but we work in a very dusty environment so it would be a pain to keep up. I have been thinking of a rubber drive wheel to ride on the beam some where? What I would like to so is a rack and pinion drive like our Vantec 480 uses but I can find it no where? That would be my second question.

Where is the best place to buy very long pieces of the extruded aluminum for the table, it looks like prices are all over the place. Id like to source it all at one place. I need some big stuff 3x6 and 3x3.

I have found a Pre-Aligned Dual Shafts and pillow block carriage assembly that would do the job of the rails in the X axis length I need but it would account for half of the saws cost and might blow the budget if the extruded aluminum cost is as high as it looks it will be.

I added a rough draft pdf. Any ideas and vendors that would have what I'm looking for would be much appreciated.

TA

[ger21]

I've used a few beam saws in the past, but don't remember all the details.

Yes, you can butt rails end to end, but most beam saws use V-Rollers and track, or something similar to move the motor carriage. It's more immune to dust than linear rails, and it's cheaper. Consider chain drive to move the carriage. Cheap and simple. Or rack and pinion. Moving the saw blade does not require high precision. Are you going to have a scoring blade?