After a coupla years of thought and compromises and decisions on how to make a rigid small CNC machine this is what I've come up with.
It will be cast solid aluminum which is the only real solution for the rigidity issue. If you could do it in cast iron it would be perfect. However this seems to me to be the best compromise after a lot of thought and trials.
This is a moving table design not a moving gantry design.
We plan to make the casting sometime after the 6th of January when I have help from the rest of my team here working on another project.
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Yeah if I didn't have to round robin everything I'm doing it would happen faster! I'm still working on the tracker and the cubesat as well as the turbopump projects and the X-12A.
But the CNC does look like it will be the first to get finished!
I put up an antenna tower to mount my tracker on check this out!
R. D. Starwalt said:
Wow Monroe! You are going all the way on this one.
-=Doug
The X-Axis has caught up with the Y and now I'll be working on the bearing blocks and alignment.
Time for an update! The Y=Axis is nearly complete. These 2 photo's show the Y-axis plate and gib that the table bolts onto. The second photo shows clearance for the bearing blocks to pass into the base. Next up bearing blocks and table.
I have the steel for the X-Axis on hand and expect to cut the dovetail on it on Monday.
Slow but steady progress on the machine now the base is put together and I'm squaring everything up!
I'm working on the frame. I've been cutting the frame out of steel on the bridgeport. It is so large it is a bit difficult, in the future I believe we will have these water cut beyond this prototype.
Progress is a little slow but here is where we are today. It hard to setup this huge chunk of steel and still work on the other 4 projects I have going. One of which is a rocket turbopump.
I made progress on the bed yesterday! I'll post some photo's later the machine is about to take shape :)
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