Originally Posted by
MikeGM
Thanks Peter, I will give carbon fiber some thought (may be a future upgrade).
This is as far as I have got with the build thus far. It is worth mentioning that I have dedicated a disproportionate amount of my budget to the frame, as this is integral to achieving the rigidity of the machine and will not be upgrade-able later. I am now looking to purchase the linear motion components, and will need to economize here. I am anticipating that I may look to upgrade various components in the future, once the machine can start paying for itself, but I don't want to buy junk either. To this end, I am hopeful to solicit the opinions of members here on the selection of these parts. In an ideal world, I would have 45mm roller rails, but I'm leaning towards 35mm rails. I priced up some Hiwin HGR35 rails and carriages in the UK at around £2050 (45's were £1000 dearer). I would certainly be interested in buying from China if the savings were substantial, though I do have concerns about the quality - I would welcome any comments on this. It is very difficult to find much information on sizing LM guides, the best I have come across is to select a guide similar in size to the ballscrew (though there is little available on sizing these too). Does anyone have any such information - has anyone come across any worked through examples?
In terms of motors, I did use an online calculator by oriental motor which has been shared here before to get an idea of sizing. I was initially considering Clearpaths, but for the size, I cannot afford these. I also saw some suggesting DMM were a better choice (I think this may have been claimed because of encoder resolution, though I cannot recall with any confidence). I was considering the 1.8kw servo and associated driver for axis control (the spindle will be dealt with later), though I think the price has increased since I originally looked at them - I've also read some comments of people regretting their purchase due to poor/slow . I have seen some here use Servo's from China, which appear to offer substantial savings - can anyone offer any guidance on the quality of these, are they worthwhile?
Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Mike