sagreen83
08-24-2004, 10:05 PM
So, as part of putting together my table, for my PRTAlpha 96 (48"x96") about a month ago, I centered the spoil / support board in the middle of the steel table. This is a big no-no with a single Z axis because the router (PC) is not centered in the middle of the Y axis. Doing this, I lost about 5 inches of my X travel.
So, I am going to have to re-build my spoil / support boards. I plan to offset 49"x97" MDF by about 2 1/2 to 3 inches to the X zero side of the table. This will give me about 2 1/2 inches before the stops on either end of the X axis. Does anyone else have a different recommendation on this?
Now... The Y axis is a completely different story. I have placed my prox sensors so that they are about 3/4" from my mechanical stops. This leaves me with about 49.3" of Y travel between the Y prox sensors. If I want my Y axis, using a 1/2" bit, to completely clear a 48" piece of material to be cut, it would seem to me like I dont have a lot of room to play here. So, a couple of questions...
1) How much travel (inches) is everybody seeing maximum in the Y axis?
2) How much room on the Y axis did you give between the prox sensors and the mechanical stops? I thought I read somewhere in the forum that you needed 3 inches to properly slow down the AlphaStep motors. No way this is going to happen because there just isnt enough room.
3) It appears that on the Y axis, you loose about 1" to either side due to the factory placement of the mechanical stops. It looks to me like the stops are hard set by the factory due to holes being drilled into the supports to hold the stop in place. Anyone tried to move these?
The bottom line is that I am trying to figure out where to initially place my support / spoil boards in the perimeter of the table. I had the table built to the specifications provided for the PRT steel table. Can somebody that has an Alpha 96 / porter cable tell me where they initially placed their support board to get optimal travel in the X and Y axis's
Thanx,
Scott...
So, I am going to have to re-build my spoil / support boards. I plan to offset 49"x97" MDF by about 2 1/2 to 3 inches to the X zero side of the table. This will give me about 2 1/2 inches before the stops on either end of the X axis. Does anyone else have a different recommendation on this?
Now... The Y axis is a completely different story. I have placed my prox sensors so that they are about 3/4" from my mechanical stops. This leaves me with about 49.3" of Y travel between the Y prox sensors. If I want my Y axis, using a 1/2" bit, to completely clear a 48" piece of material to be cut, it would seem to me like I dont have a lot of room to play here. So, a couple of questions...
1) How much travel (inches) is everybody seeing maximum in the Y axis?
2) How much room on the Y axis did you give between the prox sensors and the mechanical stops? I thought I read somewhere in the forum that you needed 3 inches to properly slow down the AlphaStep motors. No way this is going to happen because there just isnt enough room.
3) It appears that on the Y axis, you loose about 1" to either side due to the factory placement of the mechanical stops. It looks to me like the stops are hard set by the factory due to holes being drilled into the supports to hold the stop in place. Anyone tried to move these?
The bottom line is that I am trying to figure out where to initially place my support / spoil boards in the perimeter of the table. I had the table built to the specifications provided for the PRT steel table. Can somebody that has an Alpha 96 / porter cable tell me where they initially placed their support board to get optimal travel in the X and Y axis's
Thanx,
Scott...