Morning all - I'm going to call this last model Milli-24OPT1. 24OPT-1 does not meet the Milli objective in a couple of places. 1) its not a benchtop machine; at 1.5 tonnes of steel its not small 2) it has a high speed spindle and the configuration makes it difficult to achieve a slow speed one for steel 3) This also applies to my favoured high rail design. So this means I need to move to the Mori 200 type of config which has an outreach providing real estate for a motor and pulley/spindle.
In another thread we spent time on spindles for steel. It comes down (for me) to a 750 or 1000W AC servo with an upspeed pulley to give 0-6000rpm or 0-9000rpm or use a high speed spindle with downspeed pulley to give 6000-12000rpm say or even 4000-9000rpm....
The other aspect is that 24OPT1 was designed from the spindle backwards and arrived at 600x300mm envelope. This is driven by the 80mm dia clamp and 20mm flanged bearings. Each bearing patch sort of grows as it goes from Z axis to the column. So the next version needs to use 15mm square bearings to minimise the bearing patches...
I did more reading on shape optimisation in Fusion and it definitely is the better approach then generative for machine parts until I become better at generative. GD is a tool and all tools you need to get competent with. I do like the M1 config so will model the motor/pulley/spindle and see if I can package it into the 24OPT1 or 2 Z axis....
So onward to Milli-24OPT-2 Peter