Originally Posted by
boydage
Time to end this thread. Many thanks for the advice. I used it and put something together that I ran for the first time last night. For me, it was all about making the machine rigid enough to take out a resonance that went through the whole frame. I worked out what it was in the end and the gantry, whilst heavy and large, managed to resonate at a certain time.
The whole Z and X axis was built on the bench out of a 1500*1500*20mm sheet of 6061 I purchased for cheap. I think it was approx 180hrs from design in CAD to machining to assembly. Very cool only one component went wrong and it was one from an old file I machined out. The Z assembly I have bolted through. What I mean, is everything is connected. The bolts for the Z rails, go all the way through to the ribs on the rear. I have 130mm m8 bolts running through the sides into the linear blocks for the X. Zero welding, the main back panel for the Z is made up of 2 x 20mm plate. Fixed together with a huge amount of SS bolts and also glued. Its the aircraft engineer in me - I like lots of bolts in a line lol
I was unsure if I would have trouble but the Z is actually running on 4 rails 6 blocks. 2 rails are on the spindle plate.
So last night my test was a 2mm climb cut, DOC 20mm with a 10mm endmill and wow did it go well. Absolutely stoked to get this performance I have been chasing for a very long time. A couple of months ago this would have made a huge racket and I would have run for the E Stop ha.
Anyways, it took me 15min to clean up the huge pile of chips.
Posting a few pics. New aluminum looks so nice when its new. Dont look past the machine my workshop is a massive post assembly mess haha
Ok. I want to design and integrate an ATC. I have done a LOT of reading. I have a cheap chinese BOB. Unfortunately I am going to have to start one of those "where do I start" threads. Hate that part as I am in the line of those. Just have not found the info I need yet......