Santa's helper in the big brown sleigh should start visiting this week!
Oldsarge
6x12 Home Built Table
Hypertherm PowerMax 85
CandCNC Dragon Cut 620 DTHC IV
CorelDraw X7, Sheetcam, Mach 3
"Better to attempt great things and fail than to live in the gray twilight where there is neither victory or defeat"
Sarge just my 2 cents worth, if you go with the blade runner from candc it comes with moters already matched to the drives, so you are buying a motor with the one you dont need.
Mike
Yeah, I thought about that... fired off an email to see if they would think about listing a unit without the stepper motor for a better price... Will have to see... still haven't ruled out finding a ball screw setup & making my own... Have a bit of aluminum & such sitting in the shop.
Your build is looking pretty good... are you using flat stock as your guide on the x? Won't the edges chamfer after a bit of cutting? Did you use adjustable bearings to be able to adjust them? Still working on my design here... lots to take in... thanks for sharing your build!
Oldsarge
6x12 Home Built Table
Hypertherm PowerMax 85
CandCNC Dragon Cut 620 DTHC IV
CorelDraw X7, Sheetcam, Mach 3
"Better to attempt great things and fail than to live in the gray twilight where there is neither victory or defeat"
I think mine has around 6 inches of travel. I never use more than 3 inches of it. I was just about to buy this k2 unit http://cgi.ebay.com/K2-CNC-Plasma-Float ... 7151278776 and ran across a really nice ball screw linear stage with a nema 23 mount and coupler, perfect size and setup for what I wanted, ebay $20. so for that cheap I built the floating switch part myself. If you don't want to have to build it that k2 unit seems like a really nice piece. I will have to get some pics of my setup on here sometime.
I'm thinking I may go with 12" of travel myself... I'm thinking that I may want to do something with square or rectangle tubing at some point, and would be nice to be able to fit something other than flat stock on the table...
Also thinking I may build my own out of components... will just have to see how the time crunch plays into it... almost $400 seems a bit steep, but there is a lot of detail work involved and it seems like a good product for the price...
6x12 Home Built Table
Hypertherm PowerMax 85
CandCNC Dragon Cut 620 DTHC IV
CorelDraw X7, Sheetcam, Mach 3
"Better to attempt great things and fail than to live in the gray twilight where there is neither victory or defeat"
Mike your Z axis travel is limited by the height of your gantry really. No need for a Z that will take the torch above that height. But you could always design risers to be put in the gantry to elevate it to whatever height you need .
plain ol Bill
Hypertherm 1250
Duramax machine torch
Corel Draw X6
Sheetcam
Mach3
5 x 10 self built table
Lots of ineptitude
When you're deciding on your Z-axis setup, another thing to consider, if you're going to use the table for routing, is the weight of the router. Most of the Z-axis assemblies out there are built using an acme leadscrew or a ball screw. While either one is OK for plasma cutting, you might want to seriously consider a ballscrew for routing, especially if you're using a heavy router spindle.
I've got two dedicated tables....one for plasma and the other for routing. Both of the tables are 6' x 12' and they both came with acme leadscrews in the Z-axis assemblies. That setup is still working fine for the plasma table, after several years...and it was working fine on the router table until last week. That's when I discovered that the manufacturer used a delrin anti-backlash nut on the leadscrew, which was rated at 25 lbs. That might sound ok but the router spindle weighs 53 lbs, by itself. But add the weight of the mounting plates, linear bearings and servo motor together, the weight of the whole assembly is almost 70 lbs.....way too much for a plastic nut. We tried another delrin nut that was rated at 150 lbs, but it showed a good bit of wear after just a few hours of use.
Long story short...I switched the acme leadscrew out for a ballscrew and ballnut assembly. We'll throw the power to it tomorrow after we finish re-installing the optical home switches and physical limit switches....and we'll see how it works!
RNGA: Not planning to do any router work with this table, I think you have the right idea to keep the two tables separate... I think I'm going to go with the ballscrew setup I was looking at on Epray....
Bill, that's a good idea, because with the setup from 8020 I can actually cut multiple upright lengths for the gantry. The reason for this? I'm thinking about making a mount on the end of the table for a drive for a pipe attachment... Drive on one end and roller carriage on the other end that can slip onto the y rails, pop in the higher uprights which would only take a short while, and voila! Tube cutter!
Got my first shipment of 8020 stuff today, and this stuff is SLICK! Basically trim the stuff to length, and then bolt it together... Just have to design the motor mounts which shouldn't be too bad.
Will post pics when I get a chance....
Oldsarge
6x12 Home Built Table
Hypertherm PowerMax 85
CandCNC Dragon Cut 620 DTHC IV
CorelDraw X7, Sheetcam, Mach 3
"Better to attempt great things and fail than to live in the gray twilight where there is neither victory or defeat"
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