Gentleman I have finished my lathe and now wish to start on the 5-axis mill.
I have been reading all that I can find with regards to dc brushed servos vs steppers, I used steppers on the lathe with DIY driver boards from Oatley Electronics. Results were very satisfactory with the only steps being missed when the swarf wrapped around the job. However with the 5-axis the work will be a lot bigger with much more expensive consequences for missed steps. I am hoping to use the DIY UHU servo controllers but I have a few questions for the gurus. Do I need to gear the motors down to increase the holding torque. Do I need servos to drive 200kg's+ of gantry and head and attain reasonably high feedrates +- 10m/min so that I don't spend to long cutting air. Can I use rack and pinion drive to cut down costs on the XYAC, Z would obviously need to be ballscew with counterbalance of some type. The machine will be mostly aluminium extrusion for the moving parts with some type of linear guide, maybe igus polymer bearings. The table will be fixed and the entire gantry assembly will be attrached to pillars either bolted to the floor or roof. I have run a Rambaudi H60 which worked in this way but that machine cost A$2 000 000, obviously right out of my budget. I am hoping to first build a prototype using aluminium and acetyl for the bearing surfaces,gears etc to test the concept with a working area of 1000m x 500mm x 600mm. I know that I can easily drive this with steppers but the final build will be an envelope of +- 3000mm x 1500mm x 1500mm. All answers would be greatly appreciated. Regards Neil Macintosh The difference between theory and practice is a lot smaller in theory than in practice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
