What are the 2' x 4' router options?

[Tom Brown]

I'd like to put together a quarter sheet router. Ultimately, it would have a cutting area just a tiny bit larger than 24" x 48". I'd like 3" of Z travel too.

What are the options?

Joe CNC 2006? I don't recall the exact cutting dimensions but they must be pretty close to what I'm looking for.

modify a Joe CNC 4x4? It looks like one axis would scale down easily

Scaled up JGRO? - a lot of people seem to have passed by this design but I think the design still has gobs of merit and would be much better than anything I could design myself.


I'm looking for 1/64" per foot accuracy. It needs to cut wood and plastic. It would be nice if it would cut aluminum.

Decent speed would be nice. In fact, I'd trade a bit of accuracy for speed.

I would appreciate some ideas or advice.


Thank you.

[ger21]

I'd say modify the Joe2006. The JGRO is great to get your feet wet, but the Joe is far superior.

Accuracy is mostly dependant on your building skill, and in this case has very little to do with speed. Even a 2 turn per inch screw and half step drives will give you almost .00125 resolution. Most acme screws are only guaranteed accurate to ±.009 per foot. (although most screws will probably be better than that). So trading less speed for more resolution won't really gain you any accuracy. Unless you can build your entire machine to a tolerance of .001 and want to spend 10 times the cost of the machine on precision ballscrews.