I´ll buy stainless tubing today with 25 OD (outer diameter) and 1.5 mm thickness in 2m lengths, I think I´ll get 4 of those. 2 for the ZenXY v2 and 2 for the Lowrider v3, which needs 2x 1400mm.
I´ll also buy 18mm OD and 1mm thickness for the smaller rail for ZenXY v2, 2 x 1 m length.
I have looked at ordering tempered glass and it´s not that expensive.
I need to understand the calculator and then I can draw my own table and generate a cutting list for the local saw mill to cut MDF. I rarely cut things myself at the moment.
I just did a rough calculation. Not including the table or the glass, and using conduit, the list of ZenXY parts cost out at $270 USD. This number includes $80 USD for the control board, wiring, stepper drivers, and perhaps a display. Your use of stainless steel will increase the cost.
As for getting your tubing cut, consider building the table first, laying out the 3d printed parts, then measuring for the tubing. This will give you more flexibility in case you decide to make some changes, and it will provide a double check of the measurements.
That it solid advice and I´ll layout the parts first and then cut the tubing. I think that the table will have to fit between a standard door opening in width.
Regarding length, not sure on how long is desireble.
I think that the table will have to fit between a standard door opening in width.
If you make the legs removable, then you don’t have to restrict the width. Also, for many doors, it is possible to put a wider table through a doorway by starting with the table on its side, putting a pair of legs through the doorway, then rotating the table. This will work for some, but not all doorways.
Where would you fit the display?
This will depend on your table presentation. Do you want to hide the display, or does a display fit with the rest of the table? If you want to hide it, you could put it in a housing, and attach it to the bottom of the table with Velcro. If being visible is okay, a display mounting in the side might work. My inkjet printer has a display mounted in the side of the machine that flips up. If you wanted to go to that much trouble, flipping up would be nice. If you are going to running Marlin, you have a potential other solution. Marlin has an autorun feature, so you could completely hide the display and only expose the SD card slot. You would insert the SD card, power on, and the ZenXY would start running. Or you could go wifi and not have a display at all.
I bought ss for when I was going to expand my mpcnc. But after reading I went with lr3. But I already had the ss tubing. So that’s what I am using for my gantry.
I have attached a recent price of what ss tube was for me in bc Canada.
The emt conduit is very cheap and easy to get a hold of.
And if you have a car just print your pipe cutter and make it manageable but I agree with Robert best to leave the cutting till last.
I think it was like 30.00 a 10’ piece.
The zen needs two sizes the 18mm od
And the larger 3/4” 24.5mm iirc
The prices vary and on v1 the prices are 100% on point.
I live in Canada so some things I could find locally with out duty and shipping that’s the spot for savings for me.
I bought the kit from v1 for steppers and hardware.
My glass panel was 80.00 I live in the sticks so market place didn’t yield anything that was worth while.
I would check there first for glass
And even have a peek for a table maybe you can re purpose something and not have to build.
Also do you have freecad or even tinkercad could work too just for visualization.
Also my glass is 1/4” not 3/8
And locally sourced hardboard is 40.00 a 4’x8’ sheet.
I saw, but I’ve misplaced the script. It was actually pretty simple, a little python program thst took multiple filenames and concatenated them to standard out, with every file but the first one stripped of the first 2 lines. It wouldn’t take long to write again.
I think I mentioned that I used a UTRUSTA glass shelf for the top. It seems a nice size and goes well with the LACK coffee table.
I like IKEA, I was planning on checking out IKEA today but I didn’t actually go there.
I did get 4 meter of 25mm OD steelpipe and 1m of 18mm OD stainless steel pipe.
Are the struts for the lowrider 1400mm regardless of the use of milled aluminium or 3d printed parts? Assuming I am going for a full MDF board in size.
The overall machine footprint does vary. The 3D printed XZ plates do make the maxhine footprint wider than the aluminum (or steel) plates do. When I changed out my printed plates for steel, I had to move the belt anchors on the wheel side a bit closer together, but the machine work area remained the same size (though shifted towards the rail by a few mm.) A 1400mm beam (and strut plates) gives a working width large enough for full sheet.
Did you notice anything large differences between 3d printed XZ plates and steel XZ plates? Does it make it sturdier? And do you gain anything by going for steel?
Nope. Well, the steel llates were a lot easier to get the beam square to the YZ plates, but no discernable difference in usage.
Anything gained for steel? Well apparently a risk of rust… when Ryan offered the plates in metal, either alumimum or steel was an option. I figured that if I was going to see a difference, swing for the fence… and in the end, the printed plastic just wasn’t a weak spot for the XZ plates. They were a pain to print, but at the recommended infill are solid enough not to flex noticeably. The extra mass slows Y accel a bit, but seems to make the Z a bit more stable. Could be my imagination on the latter. Aluminum will be a slightly easier.build than plastic, and lighter than the steel, so I’d personally recommend that.
I´m in the information gathering stage at the moment but I´ll most likely order plates from the store, I haven’t found a place here that does them in a competetive price.
What´s your thoughts about the large XY plates? I think I have the bedsize for printing them on my ender 5 plus but perhaps they are better in MDF?
The YZ plates? They are best if milled from something rigid. 6mm aluminum would be very nice, I think. Mine are (now) 12mm acrylic, originally 12mm birch plywood. Many people use MDF to good effect.
If you don’t already have access to a CNC, 3D printed ones are not a bad temporary solution. If you are buying parts from the V1 store, then just buy them, it’s quite a bit of work to replace them, actually.
If you use printed ones, use the machine to mill new ones as soon as you have the struts installed. Printed is probably OK, but I’d rather have something more thermally stable.
Alternatively, you can call around local glass shops and have a custom size cut out and tempered. This is what I did with mine to get 32"x48"x1/4" glass sheets to fit the size table I wanted. Fair warning that it was not cheap, so if a readily available size fits your needs, go with that.
I called my local shops and the best I could find was $160 a sheet for 48"x32"x1/4" tempered. Home Depot carries 36" wide sheets cut to length for around $90/sheet (labeled as “deck railing”) but this would have been way too wide for my living room.
