The goal of this project was to design a vertical CNC machine and determine its viability. The machine would have to accommodate a standard 2440 x 1220m piece of sheet material with a maximum thickness for 50mm. An initial design specification was created to define a parameter of success, followed by researching CNC construction and component attributes. An initial design was completed, and preliminary tests were conducted for proof of concept, and adherence to design specification. This included component and software compatibility testing, component calculations and FEA. The design was then reviewed for DFMA to simplify the design from a manufacturing and assembly aspect.
As a result, this CNC machine is very viable and achieves all design specifications.
Not everyone has room for a traditional CNC router; they're about the size of a single car garage and once set up, aren't easily movable. Even worse though, is that on average, the machine is almost double the size of the material it can work on.
I wanted to design a system that was just as capable as traditional machines but could take up as little room as possible. Not only does this mean that more people can facilitate the size, but businesses can now upscale production without upscaling property or workshop.
In addition, this system can now be vehicle mounted or multiple ones mounted in a sea-container, and transported to the worksite or customer.
Though Covid restricted the amount of hands-on building and testing that could be done, it certainly strengthened my knowledge software based testing like finite element analysis.
In the pictures displayed, the frame is tested for the amount of bending (displacement) that would occur to the frame and the gantry from the forces of the router working on a peice of material.
In this case, even with the forces doubled what they would be in reality, the portion of the frame most influenced (in the red area) would only experience a displacement of 0.0004mm.
