What are you thinking of milling? The biggest issue I see with your design is the open linear rails. I feel like those will get filled with dust and chips the first time you mill wood and from that point on you will not have a reliable printer.
Also how do you plan on driving your 4 independent z motors? From what I see you have 7 motors on it and that looks to be without an extruder. That’s to many independent drivers, and if your planning on doubling up on a unit that big you will need to make sure the unit is very well squared or they will get out of sync and cause you all kinds of headaches… that is unless your going with some really expensive external drivers…
Well, at the moment I only have experience milling extruded polyurethane. But the idea is to mill wood, arcylic and linoleum (I don’t have in mind milling carbon fiber or aluminum). I know dust is a pain in the ass, so a vacuum is a must. Anyways, milling will ocur at maximum a couple of times along the year. The goal is to 3D print and, if possible, use a 750W spindle I have laying around sporadically.
I discovered Klipper, so the idea is to use Raspberry Pi + 2 SKR 1.4 boards with tmc2209 drivers. Voron already has 4 independent z motors and in every homing calibrates their position. So it will be nice to have that same functionallity where I use 2 motors.
The alternative is to use a single SKR 1.4 I just bought and replace my RAMPS (it’s having a bad time with the BLTouch attached) and connect the dual motors in series as MPCNC and the same thing with Z motors.
Thats the problem I’m having right now, my frame is very difficult to keep perfectly squared. That’s why I want to improve it
Anyways, thank you very much for your tips and thoughts. A new point of view is always appreciated
We are all here to help :). I have heard of klipper, I hear the multi board function has mixed reviews. I think I read somewhere that you want the ends stops for each motor on the same board as the motor that is driving it. Juat somthing to keep in mind.
A 750W spindle is pretty hefty (it’s more power than the dw660) and way bigger then the spindle used on the SM2 so if your looking at the SM2 as a source of inspiration, keep that in mind.
The fact you only plan on milling a few times a year does not make the open rails any better, once they get dirty it will be extremely hard to get them clean enough to function well again. If your dead set on a using it for both I would recommend taking @forcerouge lead and making a standard mpcnc with two different z hight rails that you can switch out.
Have you considered other space saving options? I have seen some really cool tables that will spin, you could have one machine on one side and the other on the opposite side. Also people have done fold up tables. Lots of options for keeping things compact, and I feel like they would have less issues and better functionality then trying to make a high quality 3d printer also mill wood.
That said if you have any questions on how to make it work, I still have a disassembled SM2 rail laying around and months of experience with it. Let me know I will try to help however I can
After what you suggested, I think I’m going to dissasemble the machine after printing the parts needed for a Voron 2.4 and a “vertical” LowRider (that way I can reuse RAMPS, leadscrews and maybe motors on the LowRider and use the extruder and the heatbed on the Voron).
But before reaching that dream I’ll need to make at least usable the current build
I’ll update how it goes with the new lead screws
