Gantry mill with moving gantry for Z-axis

[pippin88]

Downside of a simple counterweight is that you have increased inertia to deal with.

It is simple and cheap though.

[pippin88]

https://www.vulcanmachineco.com/

This company is developing a mill with a rising gantry and it looks like single central screw.

They have some YouTube videos that show it

[peteeng]

Hi Pippin - Good find. I think this config makes so much sense! Now to do it in Tetrium....cheers Peter

[peteeng]

Vulcan mechanics renders - Peter

[NIC 77]

Yeah, that's the way to do it. Looks like that machine is well thought out. I wonder how much they will sell for?

It only has travels of 13" x 13" on X and Y. 12" x 24" would be so much better IMO. But it's really nice that it can fit through a standard door opening. I wonder at what width it would need a second screw to prevent racking with the given bearing spacing.

Since the table can't actually pass beneath the columns, I still consider this to be a single column design. But really nice find of a rising gantry. I could see these becoming quite popular. Thanks for sharing.

[peteeng]

hi Nic - The first batch is at $7000USD can see them making much -$$$ from that., Then they are going to set a new price. I looked at some of their videos. Initially they had the table go thru the columns as you would expect but they changed that along the way. The working envelope is small for the config. A mill such as attached can get 330x330x355mm easily and is cheaper. They have some sorting out to do I expect. Peter

wracking should be prevented by the bearing system not the drive system.

[cyclestart]

Since the table can't actually pass beneath the columns, I still consider this to be a single column design.

Yes, that seems like an unnecessary limitation. The machine is well thought out otherwise so I must be missing something.
edit/ It also looks like the table could be wider (y direction) with no real downside.