After a few years of dealing with Matterhackers (long story) I ended up with a CNC machine.
We have the 4x4 and are extremely limited in space. We welded up a table that can tilt so that we can slide the table back into a space we have to store it.
The question is can this CNC survive being stored tilted ?
The next question is how to keep it from sliding. Our original idea was to add steel angles to hold it in place. But as we looked we were wondering if we do add angle can we drill into the side of the aluminum bar? One of the concerns is the aluminum being “soft” and if it would hold.
The other thought was what if we use 4 holes per bar and drill straight through the plywood to secure the bars? Maybe in conjunction with the angle it would hold it.
Any thoughts you can share would be awesome
Below is the answer we received from Carbide Hi AC,
We receive that question regularly; however, we have not explored that method of storage and have no data regarding the best practices or the long-term effects of that storage method. To the best of my knowledge, you are the first to execute that plan.
You can reach out to the Carbide Community to see if anyone else is using that storage method.
Bolted it down to its table slab & made a frame to attach castor’s along one side. Had put the table together with folding legs. Traveled fine for the 2,000km I had to go. I oriented it with the X-axis being vertical so all I needed was a piece of foam to keep the Z-axis & spindle from banging against the end of the X-axis.
Chaotica - looks awesome! Here is what I am thinking. The steel angles in the picture will be bolted straight through the table and not into the aluminum bars. the steel will be there for support when the table tilts. Now on the cross bars, I want to take 4 holes per bar spread out across the length drill the top hole wider (so i can get a socket in there) drill a hole through the bottom of hte bar and through the table top. Securing the 4 bars to the table.
The table tilts about 70 degrees when it will be in storage mode.
