I am looking a using Garage Door Tracks and Rollers to build a Combined Shed / CNC Router.

Here is a Observatory that the roof retracts.

Roof Rollers
http://home.comcast.net/~obs_ballona/images/Roof-Rollers.jpg
Looking In
http://home.comcast.net/~obs_ballona/images/Looking-in-Obs.jpg
Back Open
http://home.comcast.net/~obs_ballona/images/Back-Open-Obs.jpg

and here is the link for the construction.

Observatory construction (http://home.comcast.net/~obs_ballona/construction.htm)

I hope this will give some other people some ideas for large CNC Routers.

I will try to get some sketches to the site in the next few days.

Doug Morency
Osgoode, ON Canada

Seems to have started out as an observatory? I'll be interested to see how you deal with the axial slop in the garage door tracks and rollers :)



Tiger

This link is from an observatory, I was just using it as anexample of using garage door tracks. i will be using the treaded rods for control, but I will have to do a sketch to envision if it will work.

Doug

These rollers run on one side of the track only.
This would require you to use two tracks mounted top to bottom to provide a linear bearing.
That would be 4 tracks per axis.
There might be some track that would allow you to mount a bearing on each side
or you could run two tracks, one on each side of your axis, with the rollers opposed to each other similar to how v bearings are used.
The mounting of the tracks will also require some thought, because this is a channel and rubbish will build up easily and cause problems.

Paul