X-Carve Shipped! Any last minute tips?

Woohooo!!! Didn’t expect it to ship for another week! It should be here Tuesday.

There’s still a few things I need to get (screws, MDF board, etc), but pretty much ready to start building. Any last minute advice or things to watch out for?

I’d suggest checking out some of the assembly videos that a bunch of woodworkers made last June-September. I’ve made a video with assembly tips last August, you can find it in this thread: X-Carve Maintenance/Troubleshooting Videos - Add Your Own!. It’s a 30(ish) minute video, but hopefully it’ll be well worth the watch.

A large flat clean workspace to organize the many parts and pace yourself this road is very long, frustrating, but very rewarding. Welcome to the club.

Two tips here. Get some blue Loctite for the set screws in all of the pulleys on the motors. Set the screws snug against the flat spot on the motor shaft and put some blue Loctite on the screw threads before screwing them in.

2nd (and probably more important) Watch any video made by @RobertA_Rieke. They’re good and a huge help!

Groovy, looks like I’ll add loctite and terminal connectors to my shopping list when I go pick up the screws for mounting the steppers.

@RobertA_Rieke, It’s funny you should mention that. I’ve been watching every video I can for the last three weeks. It’s been kind of neat to hop on the forums here and recognize people from the videos…yours included. :smile:

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Lot of stuff to look at there. Thanks. You guys are all a great help.

At your recommendation, Angus, I just ordered a bunch of different colored heat shrink.

I don’t think I will be setting up end stops/homing switches just yet, but I’m glad you brought that up. I may run a length of hookup wire running through the drag chain, and tie or tape it off at the ends. That way if/when I do get around to adding stops, I have a way to pull the wire through.

I bought my electronics separately, an have those tested and ready to go, so at least there’s that. Just need some connectors to more permanently affix the stepper wires to the control board.

Having built and rebuilt my small 3d printer several times, and with all the great advice I am getting here, hopefully it will not go to badly when assembly day comes.

I’d go so far as to say if you happen to live near the ocean, be proactive and swap out all the screws and nuts with stainless steel. I’m a mile from the ocean and 7 months in, most of my screws are rusting on me. (it’s in my garage with wall vents & a skylight that is always open)

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The forum is full of alignment issues, missed steps, V-wheel problems, etc, etc, so I thought I would share. Just finished my very first project using @RobertA_Rieke test pattern. Perfect. Circles are perfectly round down to a tenth of a millimeter, square is square, depth good, clean edges, no missed steps. Surprised the heck out of me. I did stiffen the X axis and used eccentric spacers in the build but other than that, it was mostly just common sense. So for all those folks that are worried, just take your time.