Please take a look at this design..

[ML1]

after some reading on this side i have desided to make my own cnc machine, i`m not a expert on this subject, so i ask some of you to help my, and give some critic to my design so i can make it better, cheaper..... and so on.

greetz...

Maarten

[ML1]

backside

[High Seas]

ML1 - Maarten
Your reading has paid off handsomely! Looks very nice. If you chose to mount the gantry to a desktop - with a very small changes it could be a moving table design too!
I understand you'll be using belt drives on the motors.
Could you pass along the specs - x, y, z dimensions?
Nice drawing - now the hard part - building!
cheers - Jim

[ML1]

ok thats one of the smallest short comings the machine has i think, but a good idea i didn`t think of.

i think its the best idea to drive them with a drive belt becauce that way i safe problem(else i had to completly align the ax and the motor) what is a difficult job.

the dimensions are +- (xyz) 350,350,100 mm, but this are still sketches the size i can still adapt

[jimbo]

looks nice. I see you used open linear bearings yet the rails are unsupported. I would suggest using supported rails. may need some bracing for gantry as well.

[vacpress]

yes. fairly nice design. i think you probably plan on adding this, but it needs more structural material. your tables open sides should be replaced by walls. and the base of the device could do with being a flat pice of material, evne if its only 1/4" it will add alot of stability.. as it is, the whole frame could bend across a diagonal axis.

for real design help, you should tell us what you plan to build it out of. from your 3dcad, it looks like 1/2" aluminum, which would be fine. another thing to mention is that your machine looks like it has around 4" of Z, you could go with 6 probably... just add structural parts to the gantry, the table, etc.

otherwise it look good.. especially for a first-go

[ML1]

your right i had suported the rails but i didn`t show them i have now supported the the gantry and yes vacpress i`m also planning more structural material, but i havent draw them yet( this will make my computer slower and i cant display them becease then i can`t see the rials and spindle) tomorrow i will add them....

but for now yopu have to do it with those pictures..

[mvaughn]

One thing I would suggest would be to offset the y-axis of your gantry so you don't lose so much space when you get your router mounted. Currently when you slide the gantry to the back of the x-axis your router will still be quite a ways from the end of the table, ie.. lost space.

It will also help balance some of the weight over the gantry.

For example:

[arvidb]

Looks good! Don't forget to include space for the motors though. Where are you planning to mount them?

Arvid

[balsaman]

The gantry uprights should be wider so it deoesn't skew on heavy cuts when the cutting load is near the sides.

Eric