One ballrail for the y- axis is that sufficient

[belgrado]

Hello,

Just one question .
I'm designing my gantry router these days .
It wil mainly be used as a wood router for gutar parts .
Cutting speed is not the most important thing for me.
Over the last year I got lots of linear components toghether, so now I only have to put everything in the right place .
I have a starlinear (bosch rexroth ) rail of 1036mm long in the 30 mm size and two carriages ( 1653-794-20 ) .
I was thinking of using only one rail for the y axis on the gantry .(maybe with two carriages in line about 240mm long together).
I planned on screwing the rail on a 100mm square iron tube (thick walled)and use a leadscrew on the top of that tube to move the y axis so there will be a sort of L saped connection between the carriage and the leadscrew nut support.
The specs of this rail and carriage seem quite heavy and strong so I thought it would be ok to use one rail only for putting on a Z axis mechanism (not too heavy )and a 1 1/2 hp router motor .
The Z axis movement will be about 4 inches .
Thanks for reading this post .

Paul Belgrado
Belgium

[andy_ck87028]

A picture beats a thousand words

If I am right in picturing your plan, I am concerned that the carriages would be subject to excessive turning force caused by the z axis.... but I am not confident I have answered appropriately.

Andy

[belgrado]

Andy ,
Thanks for the reply .
Here's a picture of the rail with a porter+cable 690 router so you can see the size .
If the beam where the rail is screwed on is very strong will it work ?
You can check out the specs on the attached documents .(size30)

greetings

Paul

[ViperTX]

For the limited z-axis movement and since you're only machining wood or plastic...it should work....what you want to avoid is creating a canterlever setup where the router is at one end and the support is at the other end...