Re: router question

Check out the files section for a spreadsheet on beam deflection.

IF you support a shaft on each end as many home shops do, your router
being on a stationary gantry will press down on the work and push on
the rails add the weight of the part and you need heavy rails.

the moving gantry flexes down from the weight of the gantry, but
lifts as one cuts, exchanging gantry weight into cutting force.

One way, it adds to the flex, the other compensates some of the flex.

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "Nic van der Walt" <nic@u...> wrote:
>
> >I want to build a table top router. A question to those of you that
> >have or are working on the same. What is the better choice, having
> >the table move or the gantry move?
>
> I think the biggest question is what is heavier.
>
> On a milling machine the head and all it's bits and pieces
> is heavier than the workpiece, so you move the table.
>
> On a big wood router the 10' by 5' piece of wood is heavier
> than the head, so you move the head.
>
> On a tabletop machine it's much of a muchness and you do whatever
> you like. ;-)
>
> Nic.