Construction began on my 8020 machine over the weekend. I've been slowly gathering the components for the last several months and the final shipment of aluminum landed on my doorstep last Thursday. Whoo-hoo! I've noticed several nice 8020 machines have been built recently so I hope my build falls into that group once completed.
It's a conventional moving gantry design using THK & Hiwin linear slides and bearings on all three axis. Toss in some of Ahren's (
www.cncrouterparts.com) bearing blocks, Dumpster's (
www.dumpstercnc.com) AB nuts, clamps and couplings, a sweet 370mm THK ballscrew (eBay), some 5 start 1/2-10 ACME leadscrews (McMaster-Carr), Gecko 251 (
www.geckodrive.com/) controllers, etc... etc... and I should end up with a nice compact CNC router having a cutting area of approx. 20" X 28".
Using my DeWalt 12" miter saw I managed rather easily to make all the necessary cuts from the stockpiled 8020 sections. LOTS of hot flying chips... but at least they are, for the most part, moving away from you! Make certain you securely clamp the stock being cut... and ALWAYS wear eye and hearing protection. It took less than an hour to cut all the pieces.
I'm currently awaiting an order from BoltDepot but went as far as I could with the assembly using 8020 hardware on hand.
I've attached a couple drawings and pics... more to follow...
Senna