check out ericinventor video on it, basically a much heavier z axis assembly, heavier than this one, linear rails on x axis, heavy aluminum bed, and then a MAKITA router. cuts aluminum like butter. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rZhmd6t-yMnNk3k.html

I haven't had much time to give it a proper stress test just yet. Your instincts are good though, in my first attempt using a 3d printed z axis you can see the weight of the router causes trouble with the contact point between the x rails and the bearings. There's no sign of any bends or warps yet, but time will tell. There's 10mm of material between the router and the plate that might do fine at 5mm if you want to reduce the leverage but I doubt it'd be very helpful. I do intend to beat the crap out of it with some aluminium milling when I've got time. I'm using this machine to learn about the limits of these components so I'll keep pushing it until it's destroyed. My biggest concern right now is how i used the old y axis to raise the z height, I suspect it needs some extra reinforcement.

The aluminum frame might help, but my rigidity issues have been more related to the drive mechanisms - The 3020 I see on amazon with the upgraded frame looks like it's still using the same linear rods that this 3018 uses - Some folks have had luck upgrading those to linear rails, but I think if you can find a rig that comes with them from the start you might save a bit on costs in the long run. If you look at some of the rigidity tests I did you'll notice where the spindle itself slips on it's x-axis, and in some cases where the bed slips in the y-axis - if you're doing very light cuts that won't be an issue, but those light cuts turn into 8 hour babysitting jobs just to carve out a chunk. Check out my test on an aluminum cube, I think the runtime for that program was about 5 hours kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pMl5f5N-s9C-pHk.html

The Makita brings 1.25HP to the table, the 500W spindles commonly available for the standard mounts hit around 0.67HP - the larger structure in theory also brings more rigidity. That being said, the frame for the 3018 can't really handle the extra power anyways which is why you'll see in my later videos I've gone a little crazy experimenting with ways to get things stable.

@@RRFTube got it. I have an x xcarve and a queenbee 1515, x carve has the dewalt and qb has the makita, I chose the makita because I didn't care for the idea of messing around with a VFD, and the makita has a better speed spectrum than the dewalt, in my opinion. I have two good size cnc machines, I dont know why but I like watching videos of people messing with these smaller desktop cnc machines.

Makita rt0701c, I was looking at the Onefinity CNC as my next machine which also uses it.

@@RRFTube nice, I just got my 3018 pro and thinking on getting rid of the original spindle and add one like yours too. I think I would get better detail and cleaner cuts. How does perform with small bits of a 1mm diameter or less? For fine engraving?