It's been a long and dirty road, but the Minisink Valley Middle School Technology Department proudly presents..... "The Green Machine!"
X travel: 44.8"
Y travel: 44.8"
Z travel: 9"
The frame is made from 6x3" 3/8" cold rolled tube steel welded to 2" tube legs and 2" angle iron for the supports and table. The gantry is formed from 7x2" .25" tube steel and weighs approximately 150 lbs with the z axis attached. All axis have 20mm supported linear rails, 5mm pitch ballscrews, 387 oz/in motors. The motor controller is the awesome Gecko G540 and a 12 amp regulated power supply. The spindle package is a typical 2.2kw Chinese spindle with Huanyang inverter. Tying the whole package together is an old Dell gx270 workstation running xp and mach3.
So far after working out a few kinks, the router is running like a champ! We have cut several different projects including a large sign using a 120 degree 1.5" diameter V bit. it bogged through the material incredibly well. As soon as we straiten out some software usability issues with Mach 3, we would be able to have students run and produce their own projects!
For more pictures and to see some of the build progression of this machine check out: http://www.minisink.com/~rbudd/