[jsantos]

Have been noodling with the design and have made more changes:
1. I lowered the gantry by a foot so it doesn't look so tall now. Reduced weight and cost too. :-)

2. I was shopping around for aluminum for the uprights and found some 1 3/8" that I was able to get cheaper
than I would have paid for a 1" so I will be using a much thicker upright.

The first attachment shows the redesigned gantry.

The second attachment is the completed frame. To make it easier to mount the rails, this was assembled
upside down. I then had a friend help me turn it right side up.

The last attachment are some parts for the x-axis. I milled channels in them to make aligning the parts easier -
easily the smartest decision I've made on this project. :-)

[jsantos]

It has been a long day but I wanted to finish the horizontals for the gantry. I was worried that my uprights are not perfectly aligned with each other and the only time I'll find out is when I fit the horizontals. The pictures below showed the process I used to test fit the horizontals.

First I mounted and screwed down the extrusions on one of the uprights. Once I've tightened down the screws, the extrusions are now rigid and as I squared the ends, they should also be perpendicular to the upright. The third picture shows how it looked like.

I then fitted installed the second upright on the x-axis carriage and see if the horizontals would fit in the slot of the second gantry. And they did!!!! I was shouting and jumping with joy. I didn't have to force fit the horizontals. They easily slid into the slots of the second gantry. That's the second picture.

The slots are 7mm deep. That's the first and last pictures. Looking at this now, I'm not sure that my Z axis would have twisted back and forth without using plates. But since I've already made the plates, the plates are going on. They will just make my Z axis much better. :-)

The pictures I uploaded seemed to be out of sequence and I can't seem to control the sequence in which they are shown. Does anybody know how?

[jsantos]

Hey Gerry,

What version of Mach 3 was I supposed to use for your Screenset? Also, what is the latest version of your screenset? I have 1.09.

Thanks!