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The first thing with a design like this is to produce a model so you know what you’re building, DS Mechanical is a perfect candidate to do this and this is the design I came up with.

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It is 1500mm x 1500mm nominally and parts where sourced from many different suppliers. Fundamentally this is an OpenBuilds style CNC router and is built around the V Rail T Slot extrusions, the profile looks like this:-

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The above diagram shows a 20x20, 40x20, 60x20 and finally an 80x20, they are available in many lengths and as I wanted to be able to use a half sheet of plywood for the work area (4'x4') I went with 1500mm long extrusions. These are all based on a metric system and are precision made so there able to be the bearing surfaces for wheel based linear motion.

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I chose to use what are called extreme wheels to add life and accuracy to the solution, here is one being mounted onto an X gantry plate.

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Pretty much all of the parts are designed to follow a 10mm grid so they will fit together with minimal fuss.

The basic frame is pretty obvious from the pictures above but for additional detail, here are closer views of the Y gantry plate construction.

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And the X plate construction, my extrusion is much longer (12") than the design (6" maybe?)

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The clamp shown holding the router is a temporary measure, I have now designed and printed another one more suitable, it took about 25Hrs to actually print. I used 8 layer walls and a 50% fill to give it plenty of strength and I also added fixture holes and increased the height to 40mm which is the combined height of the two being used in the above picture. I will take you through the design of the mount in a separate video, for now here is what the new design mount looks like in DS Mechanical tool... much nicer

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You can buy these mounts separately if you want and they run about $30 or more but you have to ensure it is suitable for your router and design. As I had a 3D printer I chose to roll my own in PLA.

Without further delay, here is the video of the frame build

 

All parts for the mechanical build can be found here : SNB Solutions and here : OpenBuilds or simply Google for them

With a background in Industrial Electronics, Solutions Architecture and programming, I now spend my time working on my YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/thebreadboardca ) where I create educational videos showing how to use various devices including Test and measurement, Home and industrial Automation, Components and other fun things I am sent to review or include in projects. I will also create many projects to showcase the use of these items
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