[Black Forest]

Has anyone on here built a dual gantry CNC machine? I would like to build a multi-purpose CNC plasma, routing and drilling table. Just kicking around the idea of making two gantries. One for plasma cutting and the other for routing and drilling. The plasma gantry could be built much lighter to achieve the high acceleration/deceleration requirements. The routing drilling gantry could be built to withstand the rigors of drilling and routing. My plan is to use heavy ballscrews with driven nuts. Therefor the two gantries could co-exist on the same table utilizing the same linear rails and ballscrews. It would be a downdraft table.

Just a thought. Is it a totally bad idea?

[drmbx33]

Ballscrews may not provide you the high speed/acceleration you want for the plasma cutter. Maybe rack and pinion could be a better choice.

I am planning to build a dual gantry CNC but mine would have two identical gantries so each one works on half of the material to halve machining time and using no more shop space (as two CNC would require otherwise).

I am too interested on people's experiences about it. Control-wise I could wire it as two different CNCs that share one physical axis but that avoid having gantries colliding each other.

[Aaron Bruce]

Has anyone on here built a dual gantry CNC machine? I would like to build a multi-purpose CNC plasma, routing and drilling table. Just kicking around the idea of making two gantries. One for plasma cutting and the other for routing and drilling. The plasma gantry could be built much lighter to achieve the high acceleration/deceleration requirements. The routing drilling gantry could be built to withstand the rigors of drilling and routing. My plan is to use heavy ballscrews with driven nuts. Therefor the two gantries could co-exist on the same table utilizing the same linear rails and ballscrews. It would be a downdraft table.

Just a thought. Is it a totally bad idea?

It is an good idea though I have not design a gantry cutting machine like this.Go ahead with your design. Good luck to you! If you need air plasma cutter, just feel free to contact me.