just ordered a 1000x1000 x carve and from what i read on the forum and on the internet there’s alot of upgrades you should do it and i want to do them before assebly so i don’t have re to the assembly, i’m mostly intrested in stiffening mods to make it as stiff as possible and as accurate ■■■ possible
i will carve mostly wood and plastic but i also want to mill aluminum as good as the machine possible can do
What are you planning to carve?
There’s a variety of upgrades, but out-of-the-box you should be able to handle pretty much all hardwoods. Normally stiffening is only necessary if you want to do aluminum etc…
Make sure that you’ve done the important things to the stock model, like ensure the Y axis potentiometers are set correctly, check belt tension and ensure that the wasteboard is level and the X, Y and Z axis are square. A properly tuned \ setup machine will get you a LONG way before you should have to worry about any upgrades.
Build it, use it, then figure out what you want.
i will carve mostly wood and plastic but i also want to mill aluminum as good as the machine possible can do
emergency stop button
Make sure it’s flat and square, first
If you’re looking to make the machine as accurate and rigid as possible, which makes a HUGE difference in output quality, you should consider building a torsion box as a base for the machine.
That’s what I did while I waited for delivery and I’m convinced it was the single biggest non-standard item I “added” to my XCarve that had the most dramatic impact. I’ve never had to worry about my wasteboard being level and Z axis depth \ squareness of the machine because I mounted the Y axis directly to the torsion box.
The only other thing I found a timesaver was I bought mine with the XController, so I’ve never had to worry about Y axis motor current adjustment to remedy missed steps…
Like was earlier mentioned. You buy a boat, you do no upgrades until you have taken her to sea on her maiden voyage. This means, build your beautiful x-carve. Take her for a few trials and then let your machine tell you what you should improve for your particular mission etc. No shortcuts for the academic crowd here.
