BigTChopShop,
Welcome to the Tormach user forums!
Our current product offering to customers is a 30"x60" steel workbench. The top is 7 gauge with a 2" flange bend around the perimeter. It’s a low-cost, off-the-shelf, simple solution:
For most things the stiffness of the table surface is adequate. We also have an EDU enclosure in development, similar construction:
When we do QC and mastering we use a base that’s considerably more substantial. I’ll post a photo shortly, but it’s essentially a thick wall round tube welded to two square 1/2" thick flanges. We anchor it to the concrete floor. The QC procedure runs the robot at higher speeds than customers currently see, and with much higher accelerations. It allows us to take data on effort required to move each joint which helps spot a problem, for example, with a bad harmonic drive.
In general, if you are after speed or high repeatability, you want high stiffness and you want to anchor your table to the floor so the table can’t ‘walk’ away from your work area.