For each side I tied a loop in the end of a 6 foot piece of 1/8" blind cord and hooked it on the S-hook-and-sprocket gizmo. I drove a 2" screw through a piece of PEX tubing to make a smooth turning post, screwed into the midpoint of my top beam - a separate one for each side. The weights hang behind, and it took a bit of trial and error to choose a length for the cords that wouldn’t hit the turning post when the weight was at the top of its travel, and not hit the floor the other way. There is much room for improvement in the ‘horizontal slack management’ setup!
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Hello everyone,
I’m at the very beginning of the setup and was thinking of following the counterweight path for tensionning the chain.
How much weight should be used? just enough to tension the chains or enough to try to cancel the weight of the sled_router_bricks assembly? Would there be a benefit or issue in trying to balance the weight both side of the sprocket ?
Thanks!
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Valafar
Montréal, Canada
you want enough weight on the slack side to keep the slack from sagging too much
and getting in the way, but you don’t want to have enough that there is more
tension on the slack side than on the sled side.
If you do reach this crossover point, the backlash in the gears comes into play
and you have some amount of movement by the motor that does not result in
movement of the sled.
with the stock frame, the minimum tension on the sled side is ~3 pounds, and you
usually have a 2:1 mechanical advantage on the slack side, so you could go up to
~6 pounds. I like to use gallon water jugs so I can easily vary the weight and
fill them to ~4-5 pounds to be on the safe side.
David Lang
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Thank you David, that’s very appreciated, great information to move forward.
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Valafar
Montréal, Canada