Increasing Z axis

[tallen84]

I recently purchased a shopbot BT48 and I have been getting inquiries for doing work where I would need an increased Z axis. Has anyone modified their buddy to increase their Z? If I accept this work I would ideally need only another 1-2 inches.

It appears as though the side rails are 80/20 aluminum pieces and I thought about trying to either add another aluminum bar and shift the current one up a bolt hole or ordering a larger side rail all together. It seams like it should be pretty straight forward. Any thoughts?

[Gary Campbell]

Todd...
The side extrusions are Bosch-Rexroth, not 8020. Similar, but not always matching in all profiles.

Besides using an extrusion to increase the height, you can also either buy or trade for the 1st generation PRS side plates. They offer a couple more inches of height. When I installed the 2nd gen plates on my old machine, I sold mine to a buddy owner that was looking for more Z height.

[jimboy]

Todd, I have a buddy 48 that I removed and rotated the spindle mounting plate. This gave me a additional 1-1 1/2 inches. This allows me to raise my bits from bed to almost 5 inches. Down side you will not be able to use stock dust skirt, but I did modify mine. Once you do this you must remember to change the limits on the Z. Jim

[billp]

Todd,
I'm not sure what kind of work you are planning on, but another option would be to "slice" the files so that you could create larger objects than would fit under your gantry.Then you could use 2" material and build up a 12" piece in 6 layers, etc. Of course this only applies to projects which could be coated/painted, etc. to "hide the layers" you'd be building. But if the products WERE paintable you could theoretically use "slicing", and "paneling"(this allows you to do a similar process to a file in the horizontal plane) and create objects that were HUGE...
The slicing feature is available in Partworks 3D, paneling might require Aspire, or other advanced software.....

[tallen84]

Gary,
Are you sure they are Bosch? I measured my side supports and found they were 1.5" x 6" and I can only seem to find metric ones from Bosch and those measure 1.57" x 6.3" (when converted).

James,
That seams like it might be an option if changing the side supports isn't viable. Is that something that is difficult to do? Note I do have a router and not an actual spindle, so I do not know if that affects the change.

Bill,
I have done a few sliced models so far however, the projects that I might have coming involve carving 3D contours on large single pieces of large rare hardwoods.

[erik_f]

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21914&postcount=19

That is a link to the router mounting plate reversal. Also since you have a router you can grind off the little metal tabs on the PC router like I did, which makes it very easy to move the router up in the actual router "clamp". You may be able to get the height you need with just sliding the router up in the clamp...but if you do both...you will be gaining quite a bit...only problem is will you have enough z travel to get as low as you need.

[tallen84]

Erik,
Thank you. That looks like it should give me enough room for what I am needing to do. With the router raised does anyone know if I will have a problem machining with smaller bits? Specifically how close can the head of the router get to the deck now?

[erik_f]

Before flipping the mounting plate, grind off the little tabs on the PC router, then you can loosen the router "holster" and just push the router up, and re-tighten the "holster"...this should give you close to 2" more travel downward...and if you don't have enough reach...it is a 2 minute process to put it back the way it was. I have done this before...but I have not done the mounting plate flip. It works well and you don't have to worry about having to get the router square like you would from the plate flip...This way you will be able to see if you can reach everywhere you want with almost zero work.