Well folks...
I got one project done with the above setup, at which point I said "FUCKKKKKK THIS" and ripped my machine apart again.
I've been at home for the past week nursing a back injury, so that gave me some serious time to put towards making this thing more capable of cutting aluminum.
The result of my efforts is below:
Basically...the only thing that is original is the base and Y axis. I switched to C-beams on the X and Z, upgraded to NEMA 23 motors, which necessitated upgrading the motor driver's too.
Wellllll...fuck it. I might as well upgrade the controller too. So I'm now running GRBLHAL on a 32-bit Teensy 4.1 controller with a breakout board designed for up to 5 axis work, and a whole bunch of other bells and whistles.
Plus...I was able to snag a 600 watt brushless spindle for like, 60 bucks, so why not slap that on there too. Which necessitated upgrading the power supply for the spindle and buying a BLDC motor controller...no hall sensors on this thing, so it's torque curve likely isn't going to be quite as badass as it could be when I turn down the speed, but it still should perform better than a brushed motor would.
Ah, yeah, and those steppers. Wellllll...I would likely have been pushing the 250watt rating on my original power supply with these new motors...any regulated, switching power supply needs to have considerable headroom if used to power steppers. Back EMF from those motors spinning up can cause the regulators to clamp down on delivered current...buttttttt, an unregulated linear power supply certainly does not have that issue.
So yeah, the voltage is gonna shift around a bit as the motors spin up and down. BUT...they're motors. They care more about current than they do about voltage. The 500vA 24V transformer I have going into a 35A bridge rectifier with 42,300uF of capacitance will certainly meet those current demands. Roughly 36vdc at zero load, I threw on a 15 amp breaker...I could have bumped that up a bit, but with my current load I don't expect to pass that.
That, plus a nifty universal aluminum plate that I designed to sit on the CNC bed and hold enclosures by their built-in screw holes. Got most of the sizes that I'll be using on there, horizontal and vertical orientation. My previous setup did that one. Took for friggin ever, didn't come out real clean-like, but good enough.
Picture: