Is a Z Axis Upgrade worthwhile if only carving wood?

X-Carve Upgrades
1

Is there any real worthwhile benefit to upgrading the Z Axis if I never plan on carving aluminum? I foresee myself carving wood 99% of the time. I may carve some plastic on rare occasions but that’s it. It’s a fairly expensive upgrade and I don’t want to spend the money unless there’s going to be a significant improvement in wood carves as well. My carves aren’t bad by any means but I have nothing to compare them to so I don’t know if I should or if I shouldn’t. Below are the upgrades I’ve done since I bought my machine. Thanks in advance!

As a side note, The Upgrades I have done are the following:

  1. DeWalt Router-Upgraded at time of purchase
  2. Nema 23 motors-Upgraded at time of purchase
  3. X Axis Makerslide-Upgraded recently
  4. Y Axis stiffening with L brackets-Upgraded recently
2

I am an upgrade addict :slight_smile: …just wanted to say that before this…

I was carving wood, aluminum and corian on a stock unmodified x-carve with no issues and with great success. If you are happy with your machine and it is doing what you want you are good and no upgrade is really necessary.

4

All I have carved is wood. Planning some acrylic soon, MAYBE aluminum some time down the road. Linear z is a definite upgrade for me. Hopefully in November I’ll have mine.

5

yeah man I would say yes and more yes because the factory Inventables z-axis is lacking it works okay for awhile but I would look at upgrading

you will see

better surface finishes and edge finishes

also more accurate parts

compared to a worn out stock one

1 Like
6

The original one works fine. That said if you want to cut faster, harder materials, more accurately. The stock z setup does have play. In machining rigidity is paramount.