I may be moments away from ordering this great looking machine. I currently have a about the same size diy machine that uses a g540 at 48v, nema 23 motors, acme 1/2-10 lead screws, and use vectric aspire and mach3. I would like to get the full 1000mm kit without the arduino/grbl motion controller and use my g540. I guess my main concern is…I’m running my current machine at a modest 50 inches per minute cutting and about 80 or so on the rapids…Am I going to get at least these speeds out of the xcarve machine? Are there any other problems/conflicts with what I want to do that i am overlooking? I realize the power supply will be half the voltage of what I am using now, and will replace it if necessary but would like to try the xcarve one first.
Thanks for your time, Tim
Tim
Lead screw machines by there very nature have to run slower because as speed increases the tendency for lead screw whip can cause big problems. The X-Carve is a rack and pinion machine with flexible rack. This means that it does not suffer from lead screw whip.
I have just ordered my machine with materials to make it into a 1000 X 1800 X 117 machine. I will be using a G540 and nema 23 steppers I have on hand. I only ordered the power supply with my machine. I also have computers with Mach3 and LinuxCNC so I will be using one of those. Thinking LinuxCNC at this point.
The G540 should handle the load. Worst case is you may want to add heat sink and fan to the G540.
Dave
The typical speeds for the X-Carve X and Y axes are 8000mm/min (315 in/min). The Z is a lot slower at 500 mm/min (20 in/min). This is more limited by motor driver power than whip at this speed. You will probably be able to go a little faster in Z with G540.
We can test with the X-Controller to see what a realistic top speed on the Z would be. This will take a few days due a backlog in other tests in the queue.
As short as the Z axis lead screw is I don’t think you would ever see a problem with whip. 20 IPM for Z is a good speed. I do a lot of tabs on parts I make on my CNC milling machine but the moves are so short that the Z axis does not even get to full speed.
Dave
Thank you for the replies. I use very small bits so 315 in/min far surpasses what I would want which is great. I’m sure there is something I could do about the z speed.
Tim