Brad's Build Notes

X-Carve Assembly
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Sat down last night and did most of the physical assembly. I still need to do the belting, wiring, and install the waste board. I installed the X carriage upside down last night, and had to redo that, but aside from that, so far so good.

I do have some notes.

When assembling the Y plates with Nema 23 motors, the instructions have you install the Smooth Idlers first. Doing so makes two of the mounting holes for the Nema 23s difficult to access. It is much easier to install the idlers last.

This video by @RobertA_Rieke came in really handy with the Z motor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuDl0jtCG3A. The only thing I did differently was to loosely fit the belt as I slid the stepper motor in for initial adjustments.

Peter (@New_Brit_Workshop) also has some really helpful videos on this.

Mounting the Bosch Colt spindle and Z plate was interesting. The instructions consist of just a video with no BOM. To find the Core Component BOM, look at the instructions for the 24v spindle.

The Bosch Colt mount in the video has the Inventables logo affixed opposite of the one that came with my kit. This means that the instructions are 180 degrees inverted from my machine. The two screws on the mount are on opposite sides from what is shown. You have to look really closely in the video to see it.

The video also never tells you which sized screws go where. The screws on the front of the mounting bracket are two different sizes, so I just guessed and put the longer one in the hole for tightening the Colt in the bracket. That seems to work, but I have no idea if it is right or not.

When attaching the Z plate to the Delrin nut, another issue arises. Due to the lack of a BOM in this section, there is no indication of which screws should be used to affix it. The Bosch Colt instructions just call them “short screws”. Fortunately at this point in the instructions there were not many parts left, and I was able to suss out that I should use the remaining 10mm screws.

Other than these small problems, it all seemed to go well thanks to the help here as well as the thorough instructions. This weekend I get to tackle electronics…yay!

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Double and tripple check the motor cables before cutting. I followed the directions (a few months ago) and ended with about 12" in scrap. I wish I’d done some eyeballing and napkin math to maximize the length of these cables.

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Thanks for the heads up Nathan! I’ll pay attention to that.

I was planning to do it like I did the belts. I ran the whole belt through one axis, and adjusted the pulley. Then affixed the belt to one side. Then cut to length and affixed the tensioning side. Repeat for each axis. I have quite a long piece left over.

Is that what you did with the electrics? Any other tips?

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Ha, I wish that’s what I’d done. Although it might be difficult to run your cables through the flex… things… without disassembling it.

Loctite. I thought the other guys on this forum were being paranoid, but just two days ago I went to check on my maybe 6 month old XCarve and 3 out of 4 Y-Axis plate eccentric nuts were loose. Less than finger tight. I went through that evening and torqued everything down with blue loctite.

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I have replaced the eccentric nuts with eccentric spacers and lock nuts. It is a great improvement not least as it is now much easier to get the right tension on those rollers. You do need to use slightly longer screws and this needs to be factored into the change over plans.

Peter

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I used loctite on everything without a lock nut except for the eccentric nuts. Seeing all the people on the forums having to shift them around after installation, I figured that would be best done once things are dialed in.

Those spacers seem interesting, Peter. Any advice on what to look for?

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I used nylon insert lock nuts behind the eccentric nuts once I had them adjusted, which seems to keep them in place.

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Hi Brad

You can buy them from Inventables - 10 Eccentric Spacers, Part Number 25195-06.

I would recommend that people buying the parts at the start of the build get these and install them at the beginning. I am unable to list all the screws and their lengths but every screw needs to be about 5 mm longer. If I remember rightly I was able to use 4 of the longest that had to be replaced to replace shorter ones elsewhere.

Locking nuts are required and this means either using two normal nuts to lock against each other or getting the locking nuts with the plastic insert.

Peter

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Thanks Peter.

I just looked at the thread you linked. That looks interesting. Did you add a washer between the lock nut and the bearing?

Looking at my screws, it looks like there is loads of leftover thread. I’ll probably try @Petesworld’s suggestion first (Thanks for that). Functionally it looks about the same, but won’t require any disassembly.

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I wasn’t able to get all the electrical stuff wired today like I wanted to. I’ve decided to build a sort of control box, and Home Depot doesn’t carry the terminal blocks I would need. Plus, I still need jumpers for the CNC shield, and a few odds and ends. It sometimes sucks living in the middle of nowhere.

I did manage to get all the motors tested, and charted out how the wiring will (most likely) go. It’s all ready to go, just sort of in a holding pattern for now. This is probably for the best as it will give me some time to really think through how I want it to be while I wait for parts to arrive.

You guys are all a great help. Thanks!