[RBE]

Hi All.

I am in the early stages of designing a multi-axis machine for home use, and am interested in the construction details of the gantry beam of AXYZ's Z series and Pacer series machines. Are there any owners of said machines out there who would be willing to take a few close-up photographs of the beam of their machine, preferably with the end plate removed to show the internal profile? It appears that the Z machines use a custom aluminium extrusion as the beam, whilst the Pacer machines have the option of a steel beam that appears to be a length of RHS.

At this stage I am simply trying to understand the rationale behind the design of these beams - especially the steel one used in the Pacer, Trident, and Infinite series machines. From reading brochures and watching videos, the bearing profile rail appears to be mounted to a separate strip that is then screwed to the RHS, which seems like a strange design decision.

Thank you for any replies.

- RBE

[RBE]

After having done some searching and thinking about things, I have managed to make some progress.

It turns out there is a clip on the AXYZ YouTube channel that shows a view of a Z Series machine with the cover of the gantry beam off, and it is clearly a custom extrusion that incorporates lands for the profile rails and rack.

With regards to the Pacer Series machines that feature a steel gantry beam however, things are still a little unclear. It appears that AXYZ are using a length of cold rolled SHS (c.f. a fabricated section), given the radius that is clearly visible on the corners of the gantry beam. Not sure if they are making the SHS in-house or if they are sourcing it directly from the mill however, as when I run the numbers on permissible deviations in thickness, concavity/convexity, squareness, twist and straightness per the relevant standard, a random length of SHS may be so out of true as to make machining (post stress relieving) impossible. So either they are hand-picking the lengths of SHS they use from the mill/supplier, or are manufacturing their own in-house to a standard higher than that specified by the Canadian equivalent of AS/NZS 1163:2016 "Cold-formed structural steel hollow sections". Will keep digging.

- RBE