[Curt26]

Evening,

This will be my first build and I've been doing lots of research into the design of it based on what I would like to do with it (milling aluminum and other soft metals). I am still very uneducated in the world of DIY CNC machines, so please bear with me. I originally planned on doing affixed gantry/moving table design, but as I was designing it on Fusion 360 I realized my spindle was getting farther and farther out from my gantry (given the constraints of the components I plan to buy. Chinese ball screws and linear rails). So I decided to move the Z-axis to the main upright supports and allow the entire gantry to move up and down (as shown in the pictures attached. The design isn't finished. I have not designed the moving table yet). To me this seems like a good idea and a very rigid build....but what do I know! This is all new to me. One of the issues I can see is the gantry will be heavy. It's going to be 8"x4"x0.5" rectangular steel tubing, in fact, the entire machine will be steel. Since this gantry will be so heavy will I need to invest in much more powerful motors to move the thing up and down? Are there any major issues that you can see with this design? Any tips on repositioning the ball screws or linear rails? Just keep in mind this was a quick sketch up of the design idea and is by no means a finished product.

Any criticism would be greatly appreciated. I would like to get started on ordering parts.

Cheers!

Curt