I'm thinking of building a steel cnc router with 1300x1800mm working area.
I have a small desktop cnc so I'm not completely green but when it comes to drawing and building a cnc I'm a newbie
Here's a sketchup I've been working on.
It's a model I found in the Sketchup library and then modifyed so it can be disassembled but still (hopefully) be as sturdy as if it was all welded.
As you can see the sides and top can be disassembled.
Have you thought of maybe putting in some positioning pins. Make em tight fit, almost a press fit. Then you are certain the machine will go back exactly the way it was. Maybe mark and place shims as well to keep the machine level/square. This is just a thought. But you can probably do this by setting the machine up, square it up, then drill two 3/8" (or 1/2", whatever) holes on the top and bottom of each side of the crossbraces and on each of the four corners of the top. Then find some solid rod, make sure it's a tight fit (where it would take some light pounding with a rubber mallet to get it on/off). Place it in the hole and cut it to fit, maybe the thickness of both pieces of material plus 1/8". Then, weld it to the brace or top (just one side of the two pieces of material.). There ya go, positioning pins.
If you don't understand this, maybe I can draw something up on SolidWorks and post it for ya.
My plan was to just bolt it together.
I'm no expert but I thought that as long as I made sure the top was square when welding it, it would stay square when I bolted it together with the sides and crossbraces.
I could probably weld the whole table but I think it can be useful to be able to take it a part if I need to move it sometime.
Some small changes to the drawing.
50x80mm square tubes on the top and removed 2 of the 6 frame legs.
Sketchup feels very awkward to use sometimes even though it's easy to start using
I'm planning on using linear slides on top of the 50x80mm square tubes,
but I'm thinking it's probably difficult to get it level.
How about using aluminum extrusion? Is that more level than steel?
In general they look like very decent rails. No matter what the rail type though, they will take on the shape of what they are bolted to, including level and square.
I am not sure about AUS, but in the US, no strucural steel, Al, or extrusion is as flat and straight as a person expects them to be. The specs are actually not great either.
Unless you have something ground flat, or level it with self leveling epoxy (or do a lot of block sanding) then it will be curvy. I am still figuring out metal stress and how it changes after cutting, but that is another topic.
Steel CNC 1300x1800mm
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