Assembled my M4 last night. I only had 2 flubs come up.
I accidentally put two of the magnet rollers into one arm and didn’t realize until assembling the last arm. If this happens to anyone else, you can look at the non-motor side of the arm. With the spool pointing downwards, shine a light into the bearing on the right side. If you see metal either right at the top or down at the bottom of the roller, there’s your magnet.
Suggestion: If possible, maybe the rollers could come in 2 colors with 1 color used on the encoder side with the magnet and the other color used on the non-encoder side. Or just pay more attention than I was when assembling the arms.
Finished tightening the last screws and cleaning up when I realized I still had 2 linear bearings in the box. I had missed that the bearings go in both sides of the two of the uprights. Tonight, I will have to remove the rod supports and bottom clamp to get the bearings into uprights. This again was mostly me not paying enough attention.
Overall, I think the assembly went pretty well. Getting nuts and bolts together was kinda difficult at times, but they all went in eventually. A PDF of the instructions would be amazing. I had to keep going to my phone for the instructions and my phone kept scrolling weirdly on the page, which was a bit frustrating. A PDF that I could print off would have made things easier. Also, a part list would be great because sometimes it took me a while to figure out what part I was looking for.
I imagine you could use a silver marker to decorate the rollers with magnets a bit. I have no idea what it would cost to produce rollers in two colors, but I’m pretty sure it would add some cost.
Definitely marking them or simply paying more attention while assembling should work fine. Being a small plastic part that is produced in bulk, the cost of another color is probably pretty nominal. It’s not a big deal in any case, but maybe worth looking into.
Following up on my assembly experience. I removed the support arms and bottom bracket in order to put in the linear bearings that I’d initially missed. I found that a few screws on the bottom bracket into the support were a little stripped. Two came out after switching from the allen wrench to a separate driver with switchable bits. The last screw was really stuck and stripped. I tried various other bits on my driver, and it loosened a little. Finally, I very carefully put a tiny drop of super glue on the tip of the bit and carefully put the bit into the stripped screw head making sure not to hit anything other than the middle of the screw head. I let the glue dry, and once dry was able to slowly turn and get the screw out. I would recommend super glue only as a last resort and only a minuscule amount. If you add too much glue or miss the screw head, you run the risk of super gluing into position an already-stuck screw.
Re-assembled and tested booting, updating, and retracting the belts; all seemed to work great. Now, I need to clean my garage, so I can mount the machine and begin cutting some wood!
Yeah, superglue is one of those things that can really save you in a wide range of situations. I was really hesitant to try supergluing given the risks involved if I made even the slightest mistake, but I had basically exhausted all other options. I love the superglue that’s in the kit, and have been using that exact superglue for a while now. I have 18-month twins, and go through a bottle of it every 2-3 months. I love the level of control that the bottle’s squeeze-dispense mechanism gives you.
I’m so glad you like the glue! We actually went through a lot of trouble to get the good stuff! Its hard to buy in bulk. But, like you, Bar is also a super fan of this specific lotctite ultra gel. And we hope that it will be a good addition to everyone’s workshop since you need so little for the assembly.
In case anyone is interested, I’ll leave an Amazon link to the precision screwdriver set I own and used. It’s really cheap and has a ton of heads. I go to it a lot for various things I’m doing. Here, the 2.0 hex head worked great on the screws and was often easier to wield than the included allen key.
! I wouldn’t have thought of it