Exactly! It seems like a good idea on "paper" and in my head... At least I'm not the only one thinking that way! Only thing I'm a little concerned about is rigidity of the "gantry" setup. I was planning on using 2 uprights made of 3060 80/20 (3" x 6" columns!), but after reading some of the 80/20 posts I'm not so sure.. The deflection calculator shows something like .001" deflection @ 24" on a single 3060 stick, (maybe more, I forget..) so 2 together should be more than enough. I get way more movement than that on the Taig, but it doesn't matter since there's so much backlash in the table anyway. With the .0005" or less backlash on these things, I want to get the Z as stable as possible.. I considered welded steel for the frame, but worry about not having any adjustment to make up for warping. At least the 80/20 is easy enough to adjust, and can always be TIG tack-welded here and there once it's all set. Those NSK slides sound insane! I forgot to try standing on the slide and moving myself; I had done that earlier with it connected to my Xylotex board but could only get 100ipm or so out of it. The new IMS drivers are quite a bit more powerful (for steppers only though!), but as a result they run quite a bit hotter than the Xylotex. I have 6 of them stacked in my enclosure right now, but re-thinking that after running 1 for a couple hours. I like to keep the enclosure as small as possible, but these things really need to breathe. I'm probably going to use a mini-ATX case instead.  |