That appears to be the way to go Peter. The slide base can’t get in the way. Great Z travel. I like it.
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That appears to be the way to go Peter. The slide base can’t get in the way. Great Z travel. I like it.
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Hi Jerm - Here is Scoot from the front. Scoot is my first high rail build. I'm very impressed with its stiffness. And it contains dust really well.... Highly recommend a high rail design.... Peter
I understand the high rail design now. That makes way more sense and I think simplifies the issue I was running into with arms the gantry. Thanks for the photo, So I can build a steel table frame, put the mount rails high up like that and really remove a ton of the moment arm from everything.
I took some ques from your high axis machine and got the design more solidified. I designed a new Z-axis from scratch using linear rails and have one massive plate to get machined that holds the Z and Y axis together. I have 8.8" of clearance from the table to the collet of the spindle and Z travel to match. I know you will yell at me for using the aluminum extrusion but it will help me so much in assembly and being able to align things I gotta use it. The X-Y axis attachement I am used some welded angle iron to give it some beef and give the gantry some reinforcement. I gotta deal with the floating Z motor (need to design a motor mount, and then finish up the table and I should be ready to cost this thing out and see if dreams can become reality.
One thing, have any of you had success using Nema 23 motors on a frame this size or should I bite the bullet and get the Nema 34s?
here is an updated photo and a link to the updated 3D design.
https://a360.co/3JHu2DI
Hi Jerm - N23 are fine. Cheaper to buy a motor mount, you have one on the other axis? Peter
Yes, Will end up doing just that. The motor mount I have on the others I found a nice one that spaces out the front bearing of the ball screw and motor mount all in one. That didn't fit on the Z
so I will just get the smaller motor bracket. Its just bed time so I haven't dealt with it.
Got an update on this. Did some math and rough cost will be $3,000 for the whole machine. I'm sure I am missing stuff so lets call it $4,000 once I find all the small details I missed. Just finished creating drawings for all the custom components and sent them to a buddy with a machine shop. Figures crossed it doesn't come back outrageous. Gotta do some searching on a different spindle than the one I had on here. After doing some more research, I don't like how small the collet and bearing are on this one (ER11 instead of ER 20), so if you got any ideas on a 1.5-2.2 kW spindle with VFD for $500-600 I am all ears.
Here is the latest 3D model. Not much changed except the side rails are 2"x4" instead of 1x4. Haven't spent much time on the green table, that will be easy for me to source and fab so only need rough dimensions.
https://a360.co/3JHu2DI
Hi Jerm - The extrusion used for the saddle and Z axis is actually not very stiff and having all those thin edges is prone to vibrate. A steel or solid aluminium plate with deep flanges will do much better for the Z axis. It needs to be really stiff to resist fwd and rearward loads... Or laminate the extrusion with 6mm aluminium each side, glued together...or bolt on deep side flanges. Same for saddle, put flanges on it ot make it thinker. When the tool pushes backward and fwd the saddle will bend at the top bearing as its cantilevered.
Maybe instream of separate spacers under the cars they can be continuous to improve the bending stiffness of the saddle. The car screws in the middle can have deep counterbore or use long screws...
Plus your better off having the z axis bearings below the gantry bearings to reduce the cantilever length. Then the columns will need to be a little higher but thats OK you need max Z stiffness. OK Peter