Hi, I'm a real beginner in this area, and I'd like to build a large CNC mill to be able to cut e.g. long planks (till about 6 meters long) for boat building from large plywood sheets - means till 1,5 meters wide and till 6 meters long - sheets. The image shows the idea (x horizontally, y vertically, z perpendicular to the base plate). My idea is to use a vertical, slightly (say about 20 degress) tilted stiff sandwich plate leaned against a wall as a base plate für the mill to save workshop space. I'm aware of the fact that the base (plate and frame) must by sturdy, flat, and able to handle the forces of the mill without any or at least with only tiny deflections. I have an engineering background (IT systems, software, design, CAD and structure construction) and I'm building small wooden boats for 14 years now. I've built some vehicles too: A car, some motorcycles for racing, and some recumbent bicycles as well. But now I'm on the lookout for serious information to learn how to build the mill I mentioned above. To start my development I'd like to know whether and where I can find useful and understandable information in a structured form to learn more how to build, and how to program and to use such a machine. Are there any books or other written documentation anyone knows and recommmends for reading to start? I'm aware of the fact that there are a lot of videos available too. But I prefer written, serious, and well structured materials for study. Any hint or tip is highly appreciated ).
where to start? buy a LEAD 1010 kit, build it, and operate it for a month or two. With this experience of an actual CNC machine you will be much better qualified to design a machine (-: Avoid Maslow, they are extremely slow since they rely on gravity to hold the router against the cutting force.
David, thank you for the tip. It makes sense to me. I've a Maslow4 here. And I found out that this is not usable for my purpose (big size panels milling). I agree with you concerning the downward cutting force. But there is more: After some investigation I've seen that the frame/platform to run this machine has an overall size that is way bigger than the area that can be milled with it. This is given by the use of the four belts used to move and position the router holder. Their ends are anchored in the four corners of a frame. An example: Milling area 4'x8' / 1220 x 2440 mms Required Postions of Belt Anchor Bolts (x/y in mms) 0,0 / 0,3'000 and 4'600,0 / 4'600,3'000 Belt Length 4'035 mms This means that the frame size to be able to mill an area of 4'x8' (122 x 244 cms) must be about 305 cm x 460 cms ! There's a web page allowing to find out the frame size needed (means the positions of the four belt anchor bolts) to be able to mill a certain area until its edges in the corners: http://lang.hm/maslow/maslow4_frame.html For smaller milling areas, the computation shows similar results. This is a limiting factor, as not many people have a workshop big enough to install this. But there's a third limitation for milling big size workpieces too: The toothed belts used for positioning the router on the workpiece must be rather long . This means that they must reach from their anchor point to the opposite corner of the milling area (edge of the workpiece). The belts are operated by four motors in the router housing part. These motors shorten/lengthen the belts to position the devie on the workpiece. The not used (loose) ends of the toothed belts are wound onto spools. The capacity of theses spools limits the maximal length of these belts. I have not measured the capacity of these spools, this means the maximum lenght of a belt that can be wound onto a spool. But this will be limited for sure too. So next step will be to buy, build and use a small cnc mill as suggested by you to get the knowledge needed to design, to construct, and to build something bigger afterwards. p.s. The mill shown in my inital post is not just an idea: It was built and is in use by the motor boat warft Kaiser in Austria