When you only need 4 screws 0.65 isnt terrible. But if one needs them in quantity then it does get pricey.
Convenience matters too.
Say I am working on a thingy and I need a metric whatchamacallit. Ace is in town and has them at their 300% mark up. I can go there or I can wait X number of days for usps/ups to show up and by them I have lost the initiative or my train of thought on the subject.
Hello,
I have made the pulley screw upgrade, but some of you know what happend if they are over-tightened?
I mean, I noticed that from a couple of day the machine start to cut not at the center of the piece (MDF) even if I set the zero on the most south-west point.
The cuts are good, the motor seem to be more silent too (and in general I have less vibration of the machine), but that off-center cut is something totally new to me!
Any thoughts?
Alex
Replacing the pulley screws should be transparent with your setup.
If your machine is already tuned, a good way to do it, in order to be sure you are not messing up something, is to replace the screws one at a time (i.e. remove an old one, insert a new one new, remove the second old, insert the second new) .
As far as tightening goes, I cannot give a torque value (and even if I did, not many people have torque wrenches), but you cannot really overdo it with a 2.5 hex key by hand. When you feel resistance, give it an extra quarter turn and you should be fine. This is already a lot tighter than the old set screws.
If you believe something is wrong, there are three things that I can think of which are related with the pulleys and might give problems:
Hello,
that is what I thought too.
To be more honest and clear, I did not made the stepper calibration because I was in a rush of use the machine and the tollerance for my needing was more than acceptable.
But now I assume (purely assume) that the screw make more âgripâ on (all) the motor shaft and the tollerance seem to be accentuated. Paradoxically that increased âgripâ have increased the tollerance too so at that point a stepper calibration is mandatory.
Do you have a Home Depot nearby? Thatâs where I get all my metric hardware. Great selection, decent prices.
I do, and they have about three drawers of metric hardware. Not all that bad⌠except that thereâs like 30 drawers or more of SAE, and generally more in the pack for the money.
http://www.albanycountyfasteners.com. This place has what you want. Shipping is awesome as well. I ordered from them and openbuilds.com at the same time. Theirs was at my house before open builds filled my order.
Sometimes we pay more attention to the machines and less to what we can do with them.
First inlay attempt. 5 bits, 2 sides, 8 operations. Not perfect, not bad either.
It kind of like a road trip in a car, itâs as much about the journey as it is the destination.
For some (like myself) tinkering ith the machine itself and the process of operating it, is as satisfying as the end result of a project.
Same here. Itâs the best way to familiarize with your tools and understand their capabilities and limitations.
What I wrote above was mostly self-criticism 
Just wanted to point out for any new forum viewers, this post is mods for the old Xcarve. A lot of these mods have been integrated as part of the new Xcarve.
This is true for the following parts, which have been addressed in the late 2016 X-Carve upgrade (*)
Still relevant:
Still relevant with new motors:
(*) I cannot help but think that this forum has helped Inventables identify some weaksnesses and shown upgrade directions. This is a great way for the community to show appreciation and offer back to make a favorite tool even better
I have a new Xcarve on order. Iâve been reading a lot of info and would like to implement improvements right from the start. If I understand correctly, to address all of the upgrades in this post I just need the following?
Thank you!
Donât forget the BLUE LOCTITE!
I just re-read this but I think the GT3 belting canât be done anymore without getting new steppers. The new Xcarve has fully integrated pulleys on the stepper and I donât think they are removable.
I donât think you can do the GT3 belting because the stepper motor pulleys are not removable on the new X-carve.
Yep, it says in the assembly instructions that the pulley is âcrimpedâ to the shaft. That sucks!
Correct. As mentioned earlier:
However, there are some pretty good deals out there if you search a bit.
Wut?
That sucks!
