[Goemon]

This is huge for somebody that wants a machine in their home shop. Even if you can get telephone support for a purchased machine you still need to understand the machine to communicate effectively with the on line service tech. The only problem with advocating the DIY approach is that some people just are not up to a machine build for whatever reason.

I would only qualify this by saying that the world of industrial actuators covers a massive array of capabilities. So if somebody goes this route be careful about what you buy as many slides simply don't have the rigidity to be used for routers or other CNC machines.

That is one beautiful build! It is a great example of somebody going his own way and doing so economically.


Those optical bench tables are an interesting breed, I'm not sure how they would work out for a machine tool build. The tables are optimized to minimize vibration. As such I'm not sure how thick the skins are on a table like this.

Optical tables / optical breadboard / laser tables (and a bunch of other names for the same thing) come in a wide variety of thicknesses / strength. You can definately find ones that are (more than) thick and strong enough for a CNC router.

The thickness is usually linked to the size, ( like with surface plates) because they also need to maintain very high precision flatness for optics / laser applications. The requirement for precision and stiffness in some of those industries exceeds ours (but for different reasons). They need to maintain flatness to the same .00001" as surface plates.

They also come in a range of materials. I've seen them in stainless steel, aluminum, granite and composite honeycomb structures (which are very strong).

The limitation to be aware off for the tables with built-in active vibration isolation using pneumatics, is that there is usually a weight limitation for that function and it's quite a lot less than the max weight the table could otherwise hold. I've seen 4000lb granite tables that can only hold 600lb with active vibration isolation turned on.

I was looking at a deal on a 30" x 48" aluminum breadboard and it was 1.5" thick. That's about the same thickness as the aluminum sub plates sold for the Haas VF2. In other words, It would cover most needs here. It takes a lot of force to bend 1 1/2" of aluminum, even at 48" long....

I think the large over-looked advantage for the diy builder is that many are designed to reduce vibration using lighter materials like aluminum. Commercial machine builders use cast for it's damping properties but, even a relatively small piece of iron weighs far too much for the average diyer to move around.

The precision flatness and perfectly positioned thread holes on some of those plates is a huge plus too. Depending on what parts people are working with, I bet many people could start assembling and mounting rails as soon as they arrive. Who enjoys threading holes....