Good Morning Everyone!
I purchased a feeler gauge to check out where I’m at. When checking for perpendicularity between the X-rail and the wasteboard, it is leaning forward only about .007", which I’m completely fine with.
However, the forward tilt of the Z-rail is roughly .050" which is just too much in my opinion to be tolerable. Before I add the shim as mentioned above, I’m just looking for some thoughts either way. Fine to do? Good idea? Bad idea? Perhaps anyone from the Inventables team can chime in and say either way? (FYI - my unit was purchased April 2018).
Thanks in advance to anyone who can assist.
Hey guys, sorry I didn’t realize fellow carvers needed these shims until now. Please find attached STL files for 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 mm shims. Plastic is better than nothing, but if you can, make your final shim out of metal.
Hope this helps someone.
Carlos (Chachin…)
Z-Axis-Shim-A1.stl (221.2 KB)
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Awesome, thanks Carlos! Still wish we could get someone from Inventables their thoughts on this. Gonna get my buddy to print these out ASAP
Actually glad this was revived. I just stumbled onto this. My unit is about 6 weeks old, and both sides of mine (old set of feeler gauges from mechanic days) are between .028-.030 off. Didn’t see, did someone say what is the bare minimum (obviously zero is best) of off kilter would be? I also noticed all the photos shown didn’t include the vacuum brackets, which mine does have installed, so it was a bit confusing for me. I can shim it, but curious, since I haven’t seen any bad cuts at all, if its worth it to shim???
To each their own really. Certain cuts (pockets) will show a front to back tilt more than others (contours). Additionally, I think I remember reading a tilt could result in some extra strain on the bit, if even a little. Personally, I don’t think .03 is reasonable.
I mean, of course this is a hobby machine, so some tolerance is to be expected. I would be ecstatic if there was a way to tune this somehow instead of using makeshift shims- it just feels wrong.
Recap:
Mine was .028 off kilter (again an old set of feeler gauges from the 70’s) Remembered my neighbor across the street mentioned 3D printing. Hmmm, texted his Mom at 8:00 last night, he came across the street within 2 minutes. Showed him the file Chachin (Carlos) shared with the community. He said oh yeah he could make them. Literally within 5 minutes he was back across the street with 4 samples. .015, .020, .033, and .035 (off sizes). Mine was off .028, so I decided to test the .033, and just crank down on the allen heads to make it .028. I got lucky the first time. Perfect alignment.
Did I do it right? Old plastic triangle from my drafting days. Well, it shows it’s perfectly true. Don’t know if it’s right or not. In fact I didn’t know it was wrong, until I stumbled onto this Z-Carriage topic. My X-Carve never faltered as far as I know. I doubt I will ever know if this .028-.033 3D printed piece of plastic worked or not, but I feel “accomplished” now. Also went ahead and readjusted all the X and Y coordinates against my waste board. X-75 was off 2 notches (unknown why). I had squared my board up (Y-Axis) when I got it back in early March, and it was still right on.
Process wasn’t too bad (3-4 beers) Had to loosen and remove one screw on each side of the vacuum brackets. Once the top was loosened, it slid down to the waste board. Couldn’t get an allen in the top 2 screws, so I had to remove the “Z” stepper motor. Needed to tighten the Z-axis belt a bit anyway. Propped the entire unit up on some scrap wood, because with all the screws loose, it slid down to the waste board. With the weight of the router on there, it was a bit awkward to support with my hand, while trying to tighten the 4 screws back up TIGHT.
All and all, it was a 3-4 beer job, with minimal tools. I feel better. Don’t know why, I didn’t feel bad.
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I made a small tramming attachment for mine. It definitely rotates the rail, which looks good against a square, but I haven’t done a true tram yet. It could use a nicer screw and a jam nut, but I expect it to work pretty well.
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I am having this exact same issue on top of wasteboard not uniformly “level” across the whole wasteboard.
After checking everywhere online (here and google), it seems I am going to have to pull the 4 screws on each side of the makerslide and make 3 of them on each side to be able to rotate the makerslide 1/8th ish to make the Z axis perpendicular to the Y axis.
I tried using shims on the Z makerslide but I can’t make enough space to make it square/plumb without getting longer button head screws.
I am curious how common this issue is for new builds.
Kudos for you all posting on here. I literally spent 5 hours reading and checking things on my X Carve today. 
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Not to necrothread, but thanks to @Chachin for the post. That squared up my z-axis front to back perfectly. Now my pocket bottoms are so much smoother. Damn wish I had checked that (I had fixed left-right square, but kind of assumed front-back was hard set with the big metal plates). The small plastic shims set it perfectly. Seems like this should either be settable or something in the machine construction. I assume this must be a result of the stiffening mod for the '15 x-rails pulling the 2 rails slightly out of true or something.
What exactly did you unscrew?
There are some screws on the top and button of the back of the plate that holds the z-axis. loosen these and you can move the z-axis in both side to side and front to back (by a mm or so). If your axis is more than you can square with that small amount of play something else is wrong.
Dado Shims would work great!! Different thicknesses and still plastic!!
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