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@PhilJohnson or anyone else who “upgraded” to the Microcarve Z. Before you reinforced the backing plate on your linear Z, did you have serious z-axis flex issues? I was cutting with a 1/4" EM today and I’m getting stepping that is radiating outwards (the pocket cut was moving outwards) indicating that I don’t have alignment issues but the spindle is flexing in the cut (I think). I’m not even going aggressive on the cut: .1" pass depth, 40% step over, 40IPM feed, 10IPM plunge. This is ridiculous IMO, I ditched the OEM Z-axis to eliminate this issue and I think it was even be worse than stock.
I haven’t seen anything like that with mine (microcarve Z, 40x40 and openrail X with solid axles instead of seperate bolts for each wheel, eccentric spacers all round)
That looks nice! The base frame is the weak pont now. I just ordered some 40x40 and a linear Z rail. I may have to do the Y rails after seeing yours, but I have the 750 and I don’t want to loose any x travel. Did you lose any?
I checked all the V wheels, all are properly tensioned. My belts are about 5lb. at 1" deflection. I made a video that shows the movement I have in the Z. I am seeing some movement between the bearing and the shaft on all 4 bearings maybe magnified by the flex in the backplate.
There is no movement between the coupler and thread or motor. Is it possible the motor is being overpowered and is therefore missing steps? It’s the only thing I can think of but I’m not feeling any binding so that seems unlikely.
After some discussion with the seller, he had agre to ship to Canada if I buy out of ebay!!
I received it this morning and the quality is really good, very rigid and fast.
It use real linear bearings instead of sleeves, my concern is how long they will last with the wood dust but they easy to replace.
Fit directly on the carriage of my “new to me” Xcarve without any mod, I only need to provide four M5 screw, the holes are already threaded!!
My next mod will be to use Mach3 instead of Easel.
I have that same one, I ordered the 6"/7" version (diff seller) to upgrade but I’m not as happy with the quality of the rod, coupler or travel. Travel on this model is very smooth, the 6" model is rougher, almost looks like the rod isn’t an acme, just threaded rod like you’d find at Lowes.
I’ll try to get home and get pics later tonight or tomorrow…
I installed this 6" linear rail from 3d_motion. It’s 3.5" x 1.5" x 10" so it worked with my version of Phil’s dust boot with no modifications. I milled and drilled a plate to strap the top of the linear rail to the dust boot extrusions. It had a little bit of flex before, but now it’s totally boxed in and rigid.
So I got the new linear rail Z axis installed today ( same one as Phil ) and everything went smoothly with only one hic-up. I changed $3 value to 7 as stated earlier in posts and my Z and X axis move in the correct direction but Y axis is now backwards. I tried changing $23 to 7 also but no dice. Below are my settings. Anyone have any idea what i am missing? Thanks.
Phil, thanks for all the info on this thread. I appreciate the drawings and all feedback you have added. I have one question.
I am running 1000mm with x controller. What all will need to be done in the machine inspector to get this up and running correctly? Thanks!
Direction has to change for a direct drive ($3). And if you have soft limits you need to adjust your max travel as well assuming you have more distance in your linear setup.
When I get mine mounted this week, these are the first commands I’m doing:
$3=7 (mine is currently 3, 7 inverts Z and leaves the others in their same state, in my case both inverted)
$102=95.5 (using phils value, ill calibrate to my exact setup after)
$112=2000 (approx 78 ipm, I’ll tweak it later if needed)
$132=139 (approx 5.5 inches for my rail, may need to increase it as 5.5 is actually 139.7 mm)
$122 can also probably be adjusted, I’m going to investigate that some but I’ve got the 269 oz-in motor on my setup so not sure what you’ve got.
