[uprising]

Hey guys,

I drew this up in autocad (first time using it too :/). Its to scale in inches, want to use wood for the body, along with steel rods, and steel threaded rods. The wood should all be 1 inch thick if i can find wood like that, if not ill adjust. It should be about 18 inches across and 32 inches long, the z axis is about 15 inches high.

I am wonder if my design is solid, and where I could improve. I am also thinking about switching the rods on the bottom out for drawer sliders, to simplify it and make the assembly easier and cheaper. I am not sure if thats a good idea, but it certainly seems easier and I will be drawing up a new design to incorporate the sliders soon.

I am having problems with the autocad rendering system, due to the knowledge of autocad X_X. So here is what I got!

Thanks a lot guys :-))!

[ger21]

I am having problems with the autocad rendering system, due to the knowledge of autocad X_X. So here is what I got!

Add some lights before you render. Usually under View>Render menu

[gth629e]

Uprising,

Pretty good for the first time using it, good job! Welcome to the zone!

Regards,

[uprising]

Oh yeah, that is kind of dark sorry. Had the sun off, and had one light source... so I turned the sun on and made another one, as well a conceptual pic... hope to read some of your input. I will work on this design more tomorrow and try to improve and implement new ideas. There is a distance of .25 inches between any pieces of wood that slide on the rods, its hard to see it from the pictures. Also the cutting board should go all the way like in the first picture, I just moved it back.


Thanks gth629e! they should do have a lot of reference resources

[michael_giesbre]

I'm using drawer sliders for my machine that I'm working on (build log coming soon )

I'm using some heavy duty ones that I picked up at Home Depot, I think they were $22 CDN a pair. Very little movement in them once there is a little load on them, I have them oriented flat (rather than vertical like a drawer) and the table sits on them. If I clamp the base down to a bench and setup a dial indicator against the side of the moving table, I get less that .005" movement of the table when I push against it with all of my weight. I'm assuming that the force the cutter will apply to it will be considerably less than that (hopefully I'm right)

The hardest thing about drawer slides is getting them to slide parallel to each other, but with a decent measuring tool (I used digital calipers because the distance between slides was in their range) and some patience you can get them very close to parallel. (mine sit about .001" out over the full extension)

Now I know that there is alot of drawer slide naysayers on here, but for a first machine (prototype kind of setup) they can't be beat for bang for your buck. I'm looking at a total cost for my machine (including Mach3, servo drivers -built myself, motors, encoders, and a router to use as a spindle) of less than $1000 CDN, easily. Then I can always upgrade the machine to better ball/lead screws, bigger servos, linear rails.....

[uprising]

Hey,

Yea I would imagine it would be difficult to make them parallel. I am contemplating making the gantry stationary and having the cutting board move on the drawer slides from the sides, as a drawer would move. I do not want a large machine and don't have enough room, so I can make the table move and simply the building process for myself. I take it you are also building a moving table design, have you thought about placing the slides on the side? I stumbled upon such a design in here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15768

I like it a lot, looks solid and simple. Also I would believe it would also be simpler to get them parallel if the slides are horizontal, considering the base is put together very precisely.