Old Motors..how much machine could I do?

[shaddai]

So, about 2008 I had an itch to build a CNC router setup out of plywood, which was all the rage back then. Ordered a motor kit, built it, ran it & it flexed more than was really useful. It had a bosch router for a head & would whack up balsa airplanes & arcrylic reliably, but that was about it. Anyway, I pulled the electronics off of it & put them in a box, and somewhere between then and now, the frame was junked.

At any rate, I found the box of electronics in the garage & with the Covid slow down, I've been looking for something to do. There are 4 380(425 maybe?) oz-in steppers and a Gecko 540 controller, along with the power supply & cables etc etc. Since 2008, life has developed and making a steel frame is well within my world of resources now. What I'm having trouble with is determining about how much machine I could build without becoming frustrated with it. I know theoretically a 5'x10' could be run with those motors, but it'd be ridiculously slow to keep accuracy, and it won't fit in my garage :-) Does anyone have any guidance on determining a ball park place to start building a machine around the motors? Preliminary thoughts involve using ball screws, linear rail (the square stuff, not the round SBR) and a real spindle, but that's about it. The heaviest stuff I'd be interested in cutting with it would probably be 3/4 baltic birch, because my main gig is pro audio & it'd be a useful cabinet fab machine in the long run.

At any rate, if you have a guess, I'd appreciate hearing it.
Todd

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[shaddai]

So, doing some more research about the controller, pretty sure those motors are 380oz-in if that helps.

Todd

[awerby]

You could probably make those parts work for you. The G540 is a good controller board, and the motors are most likely okay. People make large routers using motors that size all the time, but you should figure out a frame size that fits in your shop and will handle all the jobs you'll want to use it for. With 4 motors, you can use 2 of them to run the longest axis. Look for a good quality actuator for the Z axis; they can often be found with profile rails (not the round ones) and decent-quality ball screws (they don't have to be precision-ground) but don't buy anything else until you're sure about the design. Check out some of the build threads here, and post a preliminary design back to this thread - people here will be happy to criticize it for you.

[peteeng]

HI Shad - With your description I'd consider using a belt drive. More speed and able to do a large machine. A 16mm or 25mm belt will be very accurate and less cost then a ballscrew. I have made 16mm belt routers and 10mm and they cut timber, plywood foam easily and to better then 0.1mm and they used the gecko G540 controller and 380oz motors...I'd even think about a plywood machine done right they are very good...cheers Peter

[pippin88]

Likely motors will be fine.

You need higher pitch screws, 1616 or 2020 or 2525 screws.

DO NOT use 5mm pitch screws.