Originally Posted by
SPEEDRE
I have a, K2CNC Gantry machine, that I purchased about five years ago, and quite frankly, has less than two hours use on it. I must admit this is due to fear!. I have made only two parts and both were, unmedicated failures. Both attempts were made using the same scenario, made the drawing and converted to code the night before, then ran it the next day. Somehow they seemed to have lost some steps and made some random moves, spoiling the cut.
This is somewhat off the track of my post, it's just an intro to my angst. I took a real hard look at that machine and said, I could have built one like that. A statement many of us have made I'm sure. Well, I've been designing many alternate ways of doing it since then. Many here on this forum are doing the same thing. I have seen some IMO that qualify as real, viable, quality, concepts. One is the belt drive idea, and the other is the use of 8020 extrusions. I have found that the way many machines are designed that they utilize linear shafting, all well and good. But mostly they are unsupported causing a flexing of the gantry at the bearing center points. So why not use the belt drive?. Someone here, has shown it is both economical and accurate. I may use it myself to strengthen my machine. And 8020, or t-slot extrusions, a great idea,strong, accurate, and economical. So, there it is, a little over long,obvious I know but often not considered. I also work alone. It's tough not having a colleague to experiment with.