i have started my first cnc. ordered xylotex steppers and going to look for
the support rails and bearing locally.the cnc will be 18x18x7.i wanted the bigger size but didnt add any height to the z axis instead lowered y axis by flipping the table. heres a few pics

i got my axis put together and now for the steppers. the olite bearings dont slide as free
as i would like. next time i will use skate bearing. need to clean up my big
mess first.

looking good, I wish I painter my parts while I was building. It's going to be a big mess to disassemble and paint the parts now... :(

i didnt put the wing nuts on i had to tear it down for them.
this gave me a chance to get my table sliding better. dremil the olite breaing alitle. now they slide better. i did increase the table rods to 1 inch, i went to 1" rod for the 41" span
the others are 3/4" and they seam to slide well.

she is alive no smoke everything works.running a laptop (toshiba) with a pcmcia card
from ebay.pluged it in set mach3 settings and she moves all axis yeehaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!
now for tunning the motors.

after testing on drywall i ran this simple squarre and A with a 3/8 ballnose it burned the wood some. the wood is cheap pine. i been running at 30ipm .125depth with no lost steps the steppers miss steps or stall at higher speeds.
the circles are even round great hobby machine.
i have a sign job aready setup just have to get the software installed and running.

vector art 3d sample ran with vector machinist and mach3.
2 hour cut time at 30 ipm with over 14,000 lines just for the finish pass and no lost steps
the laptop worked perfect,heres the results in mdf with cheap bits.

Nice design.

heres one more sample cut from photo v carve. its the baby boys face. i set to 3"x2"
max cut .03 min .004 max. by changing the angle to 0 deg instead of 33deg it cuts faster
still 45min with over 17,000 lines most of the time and code was in z movement.the MDF did get most of the detail. i used a v bit .25 cheap $4.00 bit.

she is alive no smoke everything works.running a laptop (toshiba) with a pcmcia card
from ebay.pluged it in set mach3 settings and she moves all axis yeehaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!
now for tunning the motors.
Hi,
Could you tell us the manufacturer and model# of your PCMCIA card? Not all of them work for this kind of duty and it would be good to know which ones do. TIA