slow your ma feed rate and check that your power supply can keep up (that it’s
voltage isn’t sagging under load)
these instructions make a ‘45 degree’ kit (so you can look on the forum and see
other examples that were laser cut)
to make you own linkage kit, you will need
-
plywood to make a new sled (not absolutly required, but makes things much
easier)
-
plywood to make the links (1/4" plywood or so, you want it stiff, so not the
super cheap stuff)
-
wood to make standoffs to get the linkages the right height from the sled.
This can be done with stacked and glued plywood pieces, but if you have other
tools (drill press, bandsaw, etc) it can be done stronger and easier with solid
wood
First get the machine to a state where you can move around and define a home
(center position that is repeatable). Make sure that at the end of setup, when
you extend the chains, you mark which link is at the 12 o’clock position on the
sprockets so that you can reset to this point when things go wrong.
I would suggest using a 1/4" bit, but the size doesn’t matter, what matters is
that you have a bit and bolts that are a snug, but not tight fit (you need to
have piecees able to rotate on the bolts)
The key to doing this is to recognize that while the existing maslow is not
accurate, it is precise (repeatable), so we need to do things where we are
moving to a fixed number of points and move the workpieces around to make
multiple cuts. We will work with the center hole, moving only straight up and
down from there for the critical holes.
Parts we are creating
- a new sled with mounting holes for the linkages in approximately an X pattern
- two links with three holes (center plus one at each end that match the X
distances)
- four links the same size to move the 3-hole links clear of the router (they
connect the ends of the 3-hole links to the mounting holes in the sled)
If you are very confident in your accuracy, you can do this all without the
maslow, but personally I trust the repeatability of the maslow over
measurement/marking 
the four two hole links just need to have identical spacing of the holes, so if
you have a drill press, it’s best to make them without the maslow, cut 3/4" to
1" wide strips 8-10" long, clamp them together and drill holes in each end
(drilling through all four at the same time) The exact distance doesn’t matter,
what matters is that the distance between the holes is exactly the same on all
of them.
for the sled and the 3 hole links, what you will do is drill a hole in the
center of your machine, and the center hole of the sled and the links. bolt the
piece to the machine tell the maslow to move up (Y axis) to +5" and then drill a
hole in the part, then move to -5" and drill a hole in the part. It won’t matter
if the maslow moves exactly that distance, as long as it moves to the same point
each time.
For the sled, you will cut one set of holes, then rotate the sled ~90 degrees to
cut the other set of holes (this way it doesn’t matter if the maslow isn’t
moveing the same distance in X as Y, you never rely on it)
You can use the maslow as a complicted circle cutting jig and move the bit to
~9" up or down from the center and rotate your stock on the center pin to cut a
circle. do not cut out the center hole yet.
remove the sled from the maslow, put a bit in the router you will mount on it,
put that bit in the center hold on the sled. mark and drill the mounting holes
for the router so that you know it will be centered on that hole, then cut out a
larger center hole for clearance (this can be done like you did the outside of
the sled on the maslow, with a hole saw, with a jigsaw, whatever. it doesn’t
need to be precise or clean, just give you space for the shavings to get out and
clear of the bit.
Then you want to mount a long standoff on the sled, mount the router and bricks
(with the router set to a reasonable height for cutting) and then get a piece of
angle iron or similar and hang the sled from the standoff. you want to find the
point where the sled hangs vertially (moving the balance point on the angle iron
towards or away from the sled) That is the height you want the 3-hole linkage to
be at. So you want to make one standoff of each pair shorter than this by 1.5
linkage thickness, and the other taller by 1.5 linkage thickness.
does this explination help? or do I need to try for images of each step?
David Lang
). I’ll check the forum for examples of the actual pieces. I don’t have a drill press handy, but I think it might be good practice to build the “part” and then have the Maslow cut it? I’ve noticed so far in my testing is that it cuts vertically and horizontally just fine…but it struggles with the arcs, so I think I can cut the strips out pretty easily. Thanks for going to the trouble to write this all out, I’ve never had this kind of support on a forum.
