Looks like a well built machine!

hadn't heard of the Acorn. What made you choose Acorn over GRBL/CNC-shield?

 

Looks strong! My only concern from the image is the MDF (I guess) machine bed, although it looks substantial having doubled the thickness, I believe that you will need coolant to cut aluminium which I imagine will cause problems with MDF. I have built a C-Beam XL which has an MDF bed but I only cut wood with no coolant. Anyway best of luck with your build.

 

Sounds a good plan. Not sure about a low profile vice but you will probably know that tightening a vice often results in the part lifting up a bit, so a sharp tap with a lead mallet normally gets the part down. With my XL style machine this is a no-no but with your machine, the bed can be solid enough for that. I use a pair of clamps for my wood projects and have to take care about lifting without giving it a clout. With my C-beam XL, after struggling with very limited Z travel for a while I increased the travel by about 4" without any noticable loss of rigidity for my work, Images

 

I chose the excellent Vectrics software Vectric Ltd - Passionate About CNC, I'm currently with VCarve PRO; it's not free, but in it's class it's a bargain in my opinion. It uses a pixel based algorithm which is fast, reliable and accurate enough for Wood Routing, for the so-called V-carving they have implemented a medial axis method that is also fast and reliable. Highly recommended! I haven't invested in their flagship Aspire software yet that includes more 3D design.
Depending on what you intend to machine in Aluminium, there may be better choices. My control is XPRO V3 (Arduino with grbl), also very good and I use the free UGS for GCode transfer.

 

Yes you need to spend a bit , retired now, so spending the kids inheritence. I started with VCarve Desktop that does 90% of what I need. Don't know much about Fusion360 but you are right Vectrics and the now defunct ArtCam (same initial developers) were designed for the arty-farty not-so-much-engineering stuff, which keeps me amused nowadays. That said VCarve is ok for 2d drawing but it's more like Coral Draw than Mechanical design CAD. Bear in mind that Vcarve doesn't create 3d models, it's mostly aimed at manipulating models to fit your part and subsequent 2 & 3d machining operations. You can find 3d stl or greyscale bitmap files on the internet (free or not) that can be imported, manipulated and machined.

 

I have gone with the Acorn as well, Scybuck. I also have gone with the PRO4848 frame. I have the frame built and am now working to get the motors and drivers in sync with the Acorn. I have no electronics knowledge so am going through the learning curve with that and the Centroid forum is helping.

 

So Michael, is your plan to move away from, I guess, arduino/grbl to Mach 3? What is it about Mach 3 that you like better...just wondered!

 

Oh, ok...that makes sense! Good luck!

 

Scybuck, are you familiar with the "Beagle Bone"? Apparently the Acorn is mutated from it.

 

T-Slot base is what I just converted to. Misumi sells them. Here is how it looks.

 

That site looks dangerous for my bank account ! Some good looking items!

 

How does the Z axis do with the weight of the spindle? I am in the process of building my sphinx, and just wonder if it will handle the weight OK.