Joe and all,

I am beginning the process of building my first cnc router, I work in a manufacturing plant that uses extruded aluminum and I plan on trying to use that. I have cnc mills at my disposal (lucky me) so getting these dead on wont be a problem. I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge of a really good router that has some serious muscle, by this I mean:
1. It wont get bogged down when you put a good amount of feed rate to it..
2. It is variable to be adjusted, is this really that much of a concern? Is going fast ever a problem?
3. It can handle metal( not like I want to do that much with this material but when you want to.... you want to right?

I am looking into something similar that Brain has posted on the tubular bearings to eliminate the friction as much as possible and I will be using the 200oz motors. I have seen your video Joe, and it looks great..... however I was just wondering if the feed rate could be improved.


Also,
Joe what are your findings on the controller board for the ones you built? Are there superior boards/controllers that you would recommend to someone that would love to skip the bad ones and use your experiance for buying the best combination of the two.

Thanks to all for any reply.
JD

Well from the HobbyCNC and Xylex boards the nest step would be a Gecko Drive, 201 or the 202 with circuit protection, because the smaller boards are linited to 45v to 50v at 3a, where as the Gecko's are 80v 7a, which will increase speed and torque, also with an all metal machine you can have the fast rapids. Mine is wood and using off the shelf parts so 80-ipm is about the fastest i would go with it.

Like most things, quality of parts are the leading factor of what they will do, I am in the proccess of designing a larger meral machine. using possibly the Gecko's and Alumn extrutions and other materials.

JimDandy you can email me joecnc2006 at yahoo and maybe compair notes or awnser some questions.

8-ipm????

80ipm sorry, i corrected it in previous post.

Wow that is a little faster than what I thought your video had shown.
Ok, ill do a little more reading and ill definately be in touch via email.