Hi G59 i saw your drawing
here is a foto of my machine
i personally think your base is not wide enough.
like it was stated by others we will have an steel box design and an Z Axis upright
so i think the foto gives a good impression of an proven state of the art design ? Right ?
I also think of maintenance of the machine what to put where.
but i now really have to think of best fitting server controller combination to drive such machine best ,..
Because i had a thought if people really want mold making do alu or steel molds they will work with small cutters high speed
and i think therefore high speed cutting is really required. So i now have a look at servos
so i think of 2 driving sets
1) Steppers
the idea is to have kind of standard or private use setup where cheap and reliable is paramount
is an Triple Beast driver with 3 Steppers and 40 v PSU controlled by an PC via LPT Board. (yes it could use Mach if needed -
the setup would be in my case an linuxcnc config which drives the 3 axis motor left right speed flood, light hand wheel on the box
the idea here is to have an setup with manual tool change
and in that setup depending on the head a lot is possible
so my thinking of Head is coming later but in the actual setup the machine could be used manual and cnc so a quill exist and the spindle is ISO30 (because i use an existing machine to 80%)
in that setup the steppers are driven in 1n 1:3 ratio belt drive which works very well.
2) Servos
i have very good results with general mechatronics so i would build on my experience and reliability in the factory
this setup would be an pc with the FPGA Card in it an server drive and to be defined servos which dictate the PSU.
So in that setup my question to you would be is it better (in cost and reliability ) to use for instance this size of motor Low inertia AC servo motor, 400 W | Granite Devices Online Shop
which adds 1000€ only in servos around 400€ of drivers and ? for PSU for just control that machine but it will be really fast.
the question then would be direct drive or gear ?
3) Motor mount & spindle
i have to think of and group it
thomas