Last year I took delivery of a Benchtop Pro X2’ Y3’ 2436 machine, and I have decided to part with it and order a new X3’ Y2’ 3624 custom configuration. I would like to see photos or hear the experiences of others who have also done this.
Regrets? Unforeseen complications? Benefits?
The only benefit I see is being able to “tile” cuts on 36" wide stock as opposed to “24” wide stock.
Did you consider just getting new parts to widen your X to 36"? Avid will put together a quote for you on the parts required to upgrade. Basically a new gantry extrusion, new X rails throughout, 1’wide aluminum bed piece. X-ball screw and linear rail…
I actually went through that same exercise to widen my 4896 to a 60" width. Details below. Obviously much more expensive on a large machine.
Thanks for the insight.
The machine fits perfectly on a 3’x4’ workbench, with the machine’s feet directly above the legs. It’s ideal, except for the access - I want to work with my machine from the “front”, and not the side. I am willing to give up a small amount of rigidity for this, but I am not looking to enlarge the work envelope.
I’m doing same on Pro 5’x2’. If you are planning on ATC, you are limiting the number of tools the machine can hold to the smaller of the two axis lengths (if you want to retain ability to end-feed / pass thru by having tools hug a Y-axis).
For gantry rigidity, rigidity does not scale linearly (or inverse linearly) with gantry beam length, it’s something closer to a squared or cubic relationship (I should probably look this up again). So for your case, a 2’ gantry going to 3’ is 50% greater length but rigidity goes down something closer to 4x.
I don’t have a formal machine design background, but I guesstimate that 4x less rigidity translates to equally 4x less MRR.
So I tried to get gantry stiffness (area moment of inertia of an average cross-section of your gantry) to the same stiffness (or more!) of the original Y2’ length. I’m bolting-on additional extrusions to the back: Order 4" x 8" x 0.25" Aluminum Rectangle Tube 6061-T6-Extruded Online, Height: 4", Width: 8", Wall: 1/4"
