3 metre X-Carve - It's alive!

X-Carve Upgrades
1

Few months ago I did it - after finding a supplier for the MakerSlide aluminium extrusions I managed to give the X-Carve a 3 m y-axis, giving me a work area of 2,8m in length. And I thought, maybe some people might be interested in that.

It has already done a couple of jobs and boy, this is a gamechanger in our shop! Apparently, I keep the feed rate at a low end. But that doesn’t matter to me. I start the job in the morning and in the run of the day it ends. And I am happy. Yes, you can make me happy very easily.

I p1mped it up with a z-axis kit from Openbuilds, giving me 120mm travel in height.

And the best part: X-BOX CONTROLLER!!!1!!11! What started as a fun addition came out super easy to install and even more useful.

I still have the plan to update the belts to 9mm (I still have the 7mm belts in use). And if I am crazy enough I take the challenge for the X-axis… let’s see.

Finally, I managed to make the DeWalt 26200 compatible with ER11 collets by installing a reducing ring inside the shaft of the spindle (man, that sentence makes me uncomfortable). So with my M15 nut and the ER11 collets I can install bits in every 0.5-shade of a millimetre. But this I just did a few days ago and it has still to be proven if this is a durable and reasonable solution.

Keep carvin’!
Cheers!

IMG_20201016_143426_resized_20201016_023628942
IMG_20201016_143426_resized_20201016_0236289421984×1488 1.01 MB
IMG_20201016_143439_resized_20201016_023628616
IMG_20201016_143439_resized_20201016_0236286161984×1488 825 KB
IMG_20201016_143508_resized_20201016_023628198
IMG_20201016_143508_resized_20201016_0236281981488×1984 847 KB

6 Likes
2

Nice job on your machine, I am looking to extend my x carve but can not find makerslide long enough in the US. I am only looking to extend I believe my Y axis (front to back).

3

That’s where I got mine - don’t know if they ship to the US. Good luck and thanks!
And yes, the y axis is surely what you mean. :wink:

4

That is sweet. For me the biggest technical challenge would be extending the giant pile of crap that is piled next to the x-carve to allow the extended machine to sit in my shop. If there was a maker slide kit that moved all my half-finished projects and scrap out of the way, that would be so cool! I would love to have a machine like yours, right now I need to do a sign 200cmx50cm, and yours would be perfect for that (I’ll tile it obviously)

5

Now that is a beast of an X-Carve!

How level/straight did you manage to make the y-axis and are you getting any noticeable deflection?

6

I gave the MakerShift rails some brackets every 20cm / ~8 inch, so it is solid without any (noticable) deflection. You can see it on one of the fotos :wink: