Why not just lengthen the Y rails?
Most all of my jobs are longer than wide. I guess I could rotate and cut vertical but thatâs a hassle, plus my table is longer than wide.
So back to the original question. Think I need to stiffen X rails going from 500mm to 700mm?
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I ended up hot-gluing my X-axis limit switch to the carriage. I had forgotten to install it before putting everything together.
I canât say Iâd recommend it (it just feels wrong) but itâs holding up just fine.
I extended my Xcarve to about 660mm and didnât add any additional support and have had no issues. Shapeoko 2 upgrade to the X-Carve
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Thanks for the info Mike. I probably wonât stiffen the rails. I think it should be fine. BTWâŚnice video!
Thanks!
So I had a question and a remark about this mod and the v-wheel washers. I bought a piece of 3/16" lexan and cut it to size yesterday. I then clamped everything up to check it out before I did any drilling. I placed the x carriage onto the makerslides and had a look at the v wheel and how they line up. Shining a flash light on them I could see one side the v-wheel were fully engaged and the other side was very very slightly off center. Itâs as if the reinforcement is oh 1/64" (maybe less) to wide. Without the reinforcement, the v-wheels can line up no problem.
So by doing this mod, are we introducing a separate issue, the v-wheel play and need for different washers? Does anyone think I should plane my lexan down in a drum sander? Iâd have to be very careful, but I have more lexan, or sand it by handâŚ
A lot of us that have done this mod have replaced the V wheel spacers with #10 by 0.032" fiber washers found at the big box stores or good hardware stores. This is a known âside effectâ of the mod. If you donât change out the spacers then your gantry (cradle) will have 1/64" to 1/32" of play in it. This is inexpensive to fix but you will have to remove the V wheels and take them apart.
I also replaced the spacer washers in the static wheels so they matched.
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Oh, ok Chris, I guess Iâm a bit slow on putting 2 and 2 together 
Not really keen on doing that. Iâll see if I can track some washers down. I may try and thin my piece of lexan. Do you see any issue doing it that way?
One thing that you may find with your V wheels if that the bearings are not centered in the wheels because the rib in the center of the wheel is not centered.
One way to check this is take the wheels off the carriage and check them for centering. An easy way to do this with limited equipment is get a piece of plate glass. making sure that the bearings are seated against the rib lay a wheel on the glass and with a set of feeler gauges measure the gap from the glass to the wheel. then flip the wheel and see if the distance is the same.
Then record the info for each wheel on a piece of paper and place that wheel on the paper. Do this for all 8 wheels for the carriage.
Then you will be able to see what the variation is and put wheels back on the carriage so that you get the spacing that you need so the wheels seat on the maker slide correctly.
Hope this helps
Dave
Ariel, WA
These are the perfect thickness and are really easy to swap out with the original spacers.
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Chris
The problem is not with the spacers between the bearings on the wheels it is with the distance from one wheel to the same wheel on the opposite side of the gantry rails. He needs to adjust the center to center distance of the Vs on the V wheels.
Dave
Ariel, WA
Yes, I need to decrease the distance between the opposing v-wheels. Wouldnât a larger washer do that? Iâll have to go look at it a little closer.
I donât know what a fiber washer is, but I donât care for the idea of a washer being compressible and potentially wearingâŚ
The washer is just a spacer. There is no movement or friction⌠they act like shims between the V-wheel bearings. Many of us have used the fiber washers to correct this issue with great success. In your case, they may not work. 0.032" is thinner than the stock shim washers. This would increase the distance between centersâwhich is what most of us needed, since the peak of the makerslide rail ended up closer to the carriage than the center of the V-wheel. This created slight front-to-back tilting movement in my carriage. It seems that there is a thickness difference between the 3/16" Lexan you used and the steel/aluminum that most use for the mod. It may be just as easy for you to just put a thicker/additional washer against the carriage to position the V-wheel further away from the carriage and leave the V-wheel assemblies as-is. The tricky part may be finding a washer the proper thickness. The fiber washers are thinner than steel, and it may be that a 0.032" fiber washer between the carriage and the M10 steel washer (fiber + M10) will get you the spacing you need. Another possibility would be brass, as they can be found thinner than cut steel as well.
I think it would be a nightmare to try to shim the Lexan you sandwiched between the makerslides. There has to be a quicker lo-tech solution.
Fiber washer for closing gap between bearings, I would use proper thickness washer as spacer outside the Bearings or reduce the spacer thickness to mach with V slot. Two wheels distance problem is different than popping wheel bearings.
Mike,
Are you looking to get rid of your SO2 plates and extras?
if so, let me know.
Thanks
So I just did both stiffening mods for each axis. I could only get 10 fiber washers at the other hardware store so I am stopping in a different town before grocery shopping today. Are these just for swapping with the washers that are between the inner race of the bearing and the carriage wall? Or something different?
Those are replacement. Take the original washer, use fibers. Could be any thin washer. That was the only available size when I look for.
I had to drive for an hour to hit three different Home Depots to find enough of those freakin fiber washers. Donât expect Loweâs to stock them.
Yeah haha I had to hit one HD 30 minutes from my house, go home, and travel 30 minutes in the opposite direction the next day to get the rest.