Gonna build a lowrider 2 over the next few weeks and I’m currently sourcing the parts.
My local shop has ø25mm steel tubing with a thickness of 1.5mm in their “construction” section.
Can this be used or will it be too heavy or rough?
let me start by saying i do not have a lowrider, so take this with a grain of salt, but this is my understanding of what the downside is for thicker tubing. i would say it depends on your build and how you plan to use it. the issue with tubing with a thicker side wall is added weight. this generaly creates two problems;
the first is sag in gantry, most of the V1 machines suffer from this to some degree, the heavier it is the bigger the problem. most people dont find it to be much of an issue, unless you are trying to do some very delicate V carving or the like. this sag can be reduced by having a smaller sized machine.
the second issue would be your max acceleration, more weight means more mass the steppers have to push around witch means the slower the machine can speed up & slow down (try to go to fast and you will lose steps). this is not an issue for most people who are using the machine as a CNC router (as they tend to move relatively slowly anyway). but you might find it not well suited for running a laser (as most laser machines work better at higher speeds).
at least that is what i would consider when making that choice, hope it helps.
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Mine are 1.98mm thick. I had a 9 by 5 foot lowrider, so the tubes are 5’6" long.
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Thanks for the fast and helpful responses!
I am only building a 120x80cm work area, so it Sounds like I will be fine!
Looking forward to getting started on the build!
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yep it will be fine
im using 25.4mm outside diameter, 1.6mm wall thickness stainless on mine with a 1.2m work area on the X axis
I have found they are not to heavy
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The lowrider isn’t a “fast” cnc router anyway.
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Oh man… My english/metric dyslexia kicked in when reading the subject line.
I thought it said 1.5" thick and I couldn’t understand how that was possible. Then I open it and see all the ‘mm’ measurements… 1.5mm makes a lot more sense 
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