johnm
11-20-2005, 11:51 PM
Folks -
Okay, maybe this is a bit much, but I got to thinking...
It looks like the rails and gantry wheels have parafin as a lubricant. I was noticing the pattern of wax on the inside faces of a gantry wheel, and was thinking you could use Prussian Blue to check wheel/rail contact and really see how well-tuned the rails are. Do you think this would work, or is it going over the top?
The bot is all but assembled - I still have to mount the spoilboard/waste board and lathe, and I think I need to raise the Z axis up to the top position. I am re-reading the assembly manual to see what I've missed and what might now be clearer. I was kind of surprised that there were some obvious (at least to me) oversights or omissions - everything else about ShopBot has been *so* right on...
The book doesn't say anything, but I torqued the rails evenly to 60#, grade 5 is good to 80, but I didn't think the parts were going anywhere. I'm also thinking I might run an additional ground wire from the Z/Y to hook up to X, the table, control box - the whole schmere...
To test things out after I get the machine up, running and tweaked, I was thinking I'd do some "benchmarking" to see just how accurate the machine is.
More to come - let me know what you think about tuning the rails with PB...
John Moorhead
Okay, maybe this is a bit much, but I got to thinking...
It looks like the rails and gantry wheels have parafin as a lubricant. I was noticing the pattern of wax on the inside faces of a gantry wheel, and was thinking you could use Prussian Blue to check wheel/rail contact and really see how well-tuned the rails are. Do you think this would work, or is it going over the top?
The bot is all but assembled - I still have to mount the spoilboard/waste board and lathe, and I think I need to raise the Z axis up to the top position. I am re-reading the assembly manual to see what I've missed and what might now be clearer. I was kind of surprised that there were some obvious (at least to me) oversights or omissions - everything else about ShopBot has been *so* right on...
The book doesn't say anything, but I torqued the rails evenly to 60#, grade 5 is good to 80, but I didn't think the parts were going anywhere. I'm also thinking I might run an additional ground wire from the Z/Y to hook up to X, the table, control box - the whole schmere...
To test things out after I get the machine up, running and tweaked, I was thinking I'd do some "benchmarking" to see just how accurate the machine is.
More to come - let me know what you think about tuning the rails with PB...
John Moorhead