Joe,
You must have been drawing this one up before you even finished the last one.
This post probably belongs on the thread for your second machine but it doesn't look like that one is very active now.
I like your new design but your second machine is a little more along the lines of my current manufacturing capabilities. I have come up with an idea that might improve the old design for those who aren't quite ready to tackle this one. Since it used unsupported pipe I thought I could add a set of adjustable bearings inside the lower gantry to take some of the side load off of the pipe. This lead to a slightly more complex idea of building torsion box gantry sides with three sets of bearings.
See my drawings. (I only have one of the horizontal setup the other two didn't survive the floppy disk transfer from work to home.)
Since then I thought it might even be useful in a design like your current one. Maybe a supported top rail with an unsupported lower rail fully captured in the lower gantry torsion box.
Just throwing out some ideas for review.
Mike. |