[spalm]

My recommendation would be to not actually start cutting 8020 until you know how you are going to mount your motors, screws, and leadnuts. You don’t always have to draw them in, if your cad skills are not as fast as you want, but at least pencil them in as they are a real integral part of the machine and some forethought is needed here. Cad drawings would be preferred, of course.

Looks like you are off to a good start,
Steve

[tahustvedt]

Here's what I would change. I took the liberty of drawing on one of your drawings for illustration.

1. Remove the short vertical beams and mount the traverse underslung beam under the bottom edge of the two longer side beams after rotating it 90°. This should make the lower beam more rigid in the X actuation direction and the connection between the bottom beam and the side frames stronger. It would also make the whole gantry more rigid because the long side of the beam will be better at preventing one side from lagging when you are milling on one side of the board.

2. Raise the bottom Y beam a couple of inches for a little more more work space.


Does it make sense?

[margni74]

Here's what I would change. I took the liberty of drawing on one of your drawings for illustration.

1. Remove the short vertical beams and mount the traverse underslung beam under the bottom edge of the two longer side beams after rotating it 90°. This should make the lower beam more rigid in the X actuation direction and the connection between the bottom beam and the side frames stronger. It would also make the whole gantry more rigid because the long side of the beam will be better at preventing one side from lagging when you are milling on one side of the board.

2. Raise the bottom Y beam a couple of inches for a little more more work space.


Does it make sense?

Yup, I see. Your method is better and requires less material as well. I've raised the cross member so I have roughly ~5.5" of potential cutting travel, minus whatever platform i end up mounting in there.. This should be good enough I think.

Here's the latest:



Thanks for the input, keep it coming!

[margni74]

My recommendation would be to not actually start cutting 8020 until you know how you are going to mount your motors, screws, and leadnuts. You don’t always have to draw them in, if your cad skills are not as fast as you want, but at least pencil them in as they are a real integral part of the machine and some forethought is needed here. Cad drawings would be preferred, of course.

Looks like you are off to a good start,
Steve

That's good advice, I agree. This is one of the reasons I am trying to put in the time and plan it out as much as possible in cad before I fire up the chop saw. I know there will be some "uh oh" moments, but I am trying to minimize them as much as possible.