hi all, I need to make high precision shapes from metal foils such as mild steel e.g.: Copper, Aluminium and Laminated Foils | Avocet Precision Metals Where the thickness range is 0.05mm and above. Also from gold leaf where thickness is 0.057 microns and above. The overall size of the shapes would be 20cm by 20cm at the very most. The most important parameters are precision and replicability as I need to make identical scientific apparatuses to act as variations and controls for each other. The precision needs to be the best I can afford as I will be calculating the number of atoms per foil shape. Iam looking at the classic Workbee (acc. spec. accuracy between 0.05 and 0.15mm), but Iam getting the impression that it may not be reliable enough to achieve the 0.05mm level of accuracy consistently... Im new to CNC routers, but I get the impression that the accuracy is mostly determined by the steps per mm to which the stepper motors are set to, and that there is a trade off between torque (to move through the material) and steps. i.e. the higher the steps per mm, the lower the torque. As these are very thin foils Im hoping I could set to high steps per mm as only low torque would be required. In this case would it be realistic to think of producing higher precision than 0.05mm with the Workbee? As the Workbee might not be suitable (reliability of at least 0.05mm precision) for this kind of work are there suitable mods or other kinds of machines out there of similar price range which would be? How hard might it be to swap out the standard stepper motors for stepper motors capable of a higher number of steps per mm? As these metals are reflective unfortunately I cant use a laser. Maybe plasma cutters are more reliably highly precise? Thanks for reading this far, and if you have answers, suggestions of how to proceed, anecdotes of your own experiences with similar, they will of course be gratefully received!
Rather than replacing the steppers with 400 step steppers consider replacing the TR8*8 screws with T8*2 screws. This will improve resolution by a factor of 4.
