X1 performace

[fragger6662000]

Just trying to guage the performance of the machine.
I am looking to convert it with the hobby cnc control with 200oz motors and just wondering what would be the performance.

[radicooldude]

I've got that combo and can cut at up to 20ipm, and rapids up to 30ipm using direct drive. Dont gear your steppers to the leadscrews. You would think that by gearing one 2:1, it would increase torque 2fold, but it really woudn't. Steppers loose more torque the faster they rev, so you would cut your ipm in half, and not even get 2x the torque. Do a direct drive. IE, use a coupler from leadscrew to stepper motor.

[itsme]

Hi there,

As mentioned in another thread, I have got 254ozin motors on my X1. They are running in unipolar mode (like the HobbyCNC), so torque will be down a bit on 254ozin. When I converted mine, I used toothed belt drives from the motors to the leadscrews. I used a 1:1 ratio and the main reason why I used belts was to completely eliminate any alignment issues with couplings. Each leadscrew is supported by two angular contact ball bearings (also available from Arc Euro Trade).

I am getting rapids of 1500mm/min (60 IPM), which I think is quite good. I normally cut aluminium with a 6mm endmill at about 400mm/min, depth of cut around 0.5mm and 100% stepover. This is not pushing the machine to the limit, but I am comfortable with it at these settings. With steel, I keep everything the same, except drop the feedrate to about 140mm/min. I have also substituted the 6mm cutter with a 10mm cutter and it worked fine, however I prefer the smaller cutters.

By the way, this is all with the standard spindle, which is only capable of 2000 RPM - not that great for CNC. You can get a belt drive conversion which takes the speed up to 8000 RPM. This should improve cutting speeds quite a bit.

Regards
Warren

[fragger6662000]

thanks for the further information. very useful. still a little torn between options. big machine new electrics or small machine + two steppers (i have one already)

[phantomcow2]

Well, I would look into something more hefty than hte X1. I owned one for 9 or 10 months, and it is no match for my X3. Even though the X3 is a lot more costly, you will see that it is worth it when you use it.
I bet you could use your 200oz motors if you had ballscrews on there too...

[itsme]

Hi there,

If money is not too much of an issue, then I would probably be leaning towards the bigger machine. As I said, I have been very happy with my X1 and I'm sure it'll do what you want it to do without any trouble, however a bigger machine can never hurt.

If you need to stick to a budget, then I'm sure the X1 would do fine. I would personally always buy as much machine as I could for the money available.

Regards
Warren