Thoughts on Stiffening mod

I used Hand Drill, screws purchased from home depot. Hard plastic is 3/16 thick, no slip on plastics. Because when Two maker slides forcing to bend, one goes up while other going down force. You can use metal but this time you have to use more bolts and precise holes not to give gap. It is very simple. I’m not after 100% rigidity here, I don’t need to. This mode gave me stiff enough Gantry, I’m holding Dewalt, forcing up and down, it doesn’t flex anymore.
I cut bolts just enough to rich nuts. I had to shave nuts a little to pass Gantry. Also One of the screw holding drag chain and two small screws holding X Homing switch was too long, I shorten them. Removed Cable (tie some string on it for retrieve back) Inserted cut plastic between rails, make the hole, insert smaller diameter Phillips driver into hole, first retrieved cable back then slowly took Phillips drivers out one at a time to make sure cable stays on top of holes insert bolts and tied nuts. That’s it. I hope it helps.

Exactly. Through the gap and multiple points. At two to four points should be sufficient.

I would try to use thick washers if possible, because a high clamping pressure can cause the bolt to behave like a wedge and push the extrusions apart a bit. Not what you want. I was thinking that rather than washers, a small metal plate with a hole in it, or a thick 3d printed bracket, would work just as well.

I do like Alan’s solution though. It’s very effective structurally, but as a test, I would just try out the bolt thing first. It should work pretty well too.

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I did start with washers between the slides. But with a 8lb router, I needed more. As impressive as the washers were, I moved to pieces of 3/16" aluminum. As impressive as that was, I moved to a single $7 piece of steel plate from Home Depot. A single, contiguous piece running the length of the axis was even better. It was easy: Clamp + Drill.

It is like iron now. If I needed more, my first thought would be offset through bolts. Then, angle iron.

Don’t forget your Y-axis supports as well.

After all that… I still had movement… but, fortunately someone discovered the cause. The washers within the v-wheels are too thick. After replacing those with .032" thick fiber washers… No movement. NOW this thing rocks.

I consider all of this to be very, very simple mods and am now at the point of diminishing returns.

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Yes Y Axis have very serious movement when you try to move from one side. What did you do to enforce that.

At some point, you can start to add too much mass to a structure. When that happens, you start to deal with vibration problems (beams vibrating) and motor torque issues. It sounds like you have a good solution going, but I still like Alan’s solution. It transfers the shear energy quite nicely. And should lighter and almost as effective.

With the y axis, I’ve seen most people just add an angle bracket bolted to the table at the mid span of the makerslide. Structurally that’s good enough.

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Simple bracket.

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This is an important good point. I use a 48 volt Gecko system so adding weight may not work stock machines.

This mod seems to be so useful, I wonder if Inventables is working on their own version?

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Ibid.

Where did you find brackets like that?

Angus
Interesting thought. I have some two part epoxy that is high strength designed for metal to metal. It is expensive and the applicator is also expensive.
I’m not sure that common off the shelf 2 part epoxy would be up to the job. If there are any adhesives engineers following this thread maybe they will chime in on this.

Dave

Do you think anodized surface holds epoxy. Maybe something stronger. Yes glue is today’s and future’s take over welding, only finding proper application is totaly out of my knowledge.

It was just steel laying around. I am not sure what it’s original purpose was (speaker mount perhaps?) but it was in my stock pile. I cut it down on my miter saw and drilled it. Aluminum angle would do the trick as well.

Adhesive would technically work, but there is a permanence to it. When affixing the slides against each other, you really have to carefully and perfectly align them so there is no warping or twist. With glue, any misalignment that you make would be permanent.

You would have to jig the heck out of this. Epoxy is slick when wet and part love to slide around when you are trying to clamp things up. Miss alignment would be a big problem. I do not plan in doing this even though I have the epoxy glue.

Dave

@Earwigger, could you elaborate on those .032" thick fiber washers?

I’ll be receiving my 1000mm X 1000mm X-Carve sometime next week, also purchased the DeWalt 611 mounting kit ( and router).

I was looking at McMasterCarr for these thick fiber washers, knowing the ID/OD’s of the washers for the V-Wheels would be really helpful so I can have appropriate replacements ready to go for my build.

Thanks!

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I used #10 inside diameter. The outside diameter is less important. Just make sure they are smaller than the inner rib of the v-wheel that separates the two bearings.

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Here is the most relevant part of the thread: Should V-wheels have side to side play in the bearing? - #33 by AlanDavis

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Total of 20.

Thanks! Was going to go the McMasterCarr route but those hard fiber washers are between 0.042" - 0.052" thick.

I suppose the tried and true homedepot route is the way to go, although I doubt their washers are exactly 0.032" thick either…