New Guy to Forum

[kghinsr]

Hello All
I've joined this forum for the purpose of building a custom CNC Router table
Need it to cut out tables 24" wide by 48" long.
Currently need info on table and gantry building.
I've got a complete Mach3 setup sitting in the drawer
with 425oz stepper motors ( is this heavy enough for the application)
been doing CNC machining for 5+ years with sherline equipment
both lathe and mill. Also have CNC shark for small signs
Thank You all for your help
Ken

[MetalHead]

Welcome,

24x48 is do-able with the Mech Mate, but your table will need to be wider than that to accomadate the Y-Car movement.

Are those steppers NEMA 34? They should work if they are. You can upgrade the machine to belt drive using those motors if you find they are not cutting it as direct drive motors.

[kghinsr]

Mike
Just not sure will have to check
haven't looked lately :confused:
If not and they are NEMA 23
will the controller work with the Nema 34
I'm not looking for speed just accuracy.
the other question is on the plans
can they be modified to do this table size?
thanks
ken

[bradm]

Ken, if those steppers look like they would fit on any Sherline, then they are NEMA 23.

While you could potentially re-engineer the design to use them, you'll be much happier with NEMA 34s. The controller might or might not work; if you have a matched set, it may make more sense to EBay the old motors and controller, add a few hundred $, and save yourself many hours of grief.

When you look at the plans, you'll see that they don't actually specify a fixed table size; they specify how much longer the pieces need to be to have a cutting area of a given size. From visual memory, that's about 16-18" inches in the Y dimension plus a bit for the motors, and 24" in the X dimension. so a 2'x4' table would have a footprint of around 4' x 6' after dealing with clearance issues, but before adding a work aisle on at least one side.

It is at that stage that many of us have decided to find the space and go big, since a full size table is only 2.5x larger. IMHO 2x4 is better suited to a tabletop design (although I had to convince myself of that).