Hi all-

I'm considering building my own CNC plasma cutter, and I have seen alot of designs out there around various aspects of design. First, about me: I'm a garage tinkerer/small manufacturer, I have a small machine shop in my basement (by the way, I'd heavily advise NOT putting a machine shop in your basement), have an Index 12X48 gear head lathe, a Charter Oak CNC mill, surface grinder and 55 ton hyd. press, a Hobart mig welder, lincoln tombstone stick welder and lincoln 225 PrecisionTIG welder. I'm somewhat familiar with CNC, as my first project while in machining school was to work over and automate my little X2 mill. I know a decent amount about making CNC mills, but not much about CNC routers or plasma cutters with a gantry mechanism.

OK, onto the questions.

1. The gantry systems I've seen out there in the wild seem to be driven (on the long axis) by a single motor, duel motors or a single motor driving a pair of pulleys or gears on both sides of the frame. Is there a definite advantage to any one of these designs over the others? If 2 motors are used, how do you tie the motors together?
2. If driving the long axis on only one side is used, is there ever any binding problems when the axis does a rapid move? It seems to me that if the torch or router head is on the side opposite side of the motor and the controller calls for a rapid along the long axis, wouldn't the sudden acceleration cause the gantry to flex and bind due to whiplash action? If this is an issue, wouldn't this also potentially cause a loss in steps?
3. Is there an optimal method of guiding the axis? I've seen linear slides, pillow blocks on a rod slide, ball barrings on a bare square tube and angle iron frame and even a guy using skateboard wheels as guides.
4. Is there an optimal drive method? Again, I've seen several methods including rack and pinion, belt drives, chain drives, ball screws and even one that uses a cable drive similar to a computer printer.
5. For frame material, is there (again) an optimal material/design? I've seen welded tube, aluminum extrusions and one that used round tube.
6. I know that most people into plasma cutting are boosters of Hypertherm (the 42 seems to be the most often recommended), but are there serious problems with Millers, Lincolns or even Longevity brands for light/occasional work that absolutely disqualifies them?

Most of the design blogs and vlogs I've read and seen discuss the process, but few seem to discuss design philosophy or engineering. When I jump into a project, I try to optimize things as best I can, and before I start laying out cash for plans, much less raw materials or kits, I would love to come up with the best possible plan and design that I can.

Thanks in advance-

-Farasien