Thanks, it does seem to work well although I did have to partially set a couple of the anchors. After several attempts and troubleshooting I finally completed calibration at .6125 fitness this evening. On to my first test run hopefully tomorrow.
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I have been thinking seriously about whether I want to design my system to have anchors at different heights to reflect the different heights of the spools in the stack-up. I know that with z-axis moves and different work piece thicknesses, one can only be at optimal height (whatever that is) part of the time. I am open to arguments as to whether different anchor heights is worth the effort or not. I imagine that we won’t really know for sure until people try it and see.
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John Wolter wrote:
I imagine that we won’t really know for sure until people try it and see.
yep
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I was thinking this same thing.
What is done to cover the holes when not used? Garage floors can be very dirty. A short bold could be used. What are better options?
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Does anybody have complete setup with spoil board? It would be helpful to understand adjustments for different thickness of spoil and work boards are handled.
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These fill the holes
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I installed 3/8th drop-in anchors. I put a small section of 3/8th threaded rod into the anchor. I took 3/8th couplers and a 10mm drill bit and drilled down about half of each coupler (basically making a 10mm to 3/8th reducer). I screwed the 3/8th coupler end onto the threaded rod (which also locks the pieces in place). After doing that, a 10mm pin slides snuggly through the belt end and into the top of the coupler. If I want extra height, I can swap in a taller section of threaded rod (and likely a nut at the bottom for locking pressure), however, I haven’t had any issues yet. Frame flex is non-existent. To keep clean when not in use, can use set screws like above, drop some bolts into the holes, or even put some pieces of painters tape over the holes.
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Ooh, my brain is having a hard time visualizing that… Could you post a pic or diagram?
This is how it looks while connected. I used a ball pin, but a cheaper non-ball pin would work just as well.
This is it disassembled.
The 3/8" anchor is in the floor. A short piece of 3/8" threaded rod screws into the anchor. The washer distributes pressure down. Then the coupler/reducer screws onto the threaded rod, and the pin goes into the other end of the coupler/reducer.
It’s a bit hard to see from the photos, but I took a 10mm drill bit and drilled down the threads of half of the coupler. 3/8" is ~9.5mm so it only took out about 0.5mm of material. After drilling, the threaded 3/8" end of the coupler screws onto the threaded rod, and the pin drops into the unthreaded 10mm side of the coupler (the hole in the belt end is 10mm).
I tried to drill out a hole in the side of the coupler for the ball on the pin, but it didn’t work that well and stays very secure as is.
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These are the anchors I got. https://a.co/d/790d5At
Here’s the couplers I used. https://a.co/d/8UI8sEq
For the threaded rod, I recommend a trip to the hardware store. Likely cheaper and nicer than what you can get online. Really, you should be able to get it all at the hardware store.
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Hi together,
I like all your ideas regarding anchoring.
How are you fixing the spoilboard and workpiece to the floor? Any ideas on that? I could imagine that there might act some good forces on the boards when the system is running.
BR
the common thing seems to be to use the silicon drawer liner mesh or double
stick tape
David Lang
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That is interesting that this is alreasy sufficient to prevent the boards from moving. Thanks.
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I’ve only had it move by accident when I’ve hit a protruding screw with the sled, or if I’m cutting scrap and jog into the hole where a piece of wood has already been removed. The sled caught on the lip of the wood and pushed it. Or if you kick the spoil board as you walk by. But if you avoid all of that you should be ok with just the the liner mesh 
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I am looking into having my off vertical board into a combo lumber / plywood rack. What would be the minimum size Maslow rack size?
Hmmm I’m not sure if anyone has determined an absolute minimum size yet 
but keep in mind that your accurate working area will be about 2 ft in from the perimeter of your frame. I’m planning on running some tests on a smaller frame and a square frame.
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I finally assembled my ‘super simple’ frame brackets on 30" 2x4s, it’s not the
minimum size, but it will give me ~14" square working area. I’m having
interesting fun trying to do calibration, one time I got .83, another time it
failed on the first round with 0.36
I’ll do more testing and get more video of it.
David Lang
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@Andith What you have come up with looks genius! Can you give an update to any mods or issues you have ran into? I plan on using your design.
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Unfortunately, I haven’t cut anything in a little while. Been really busy with other things. Overall, I think the mount has worked great. As long as the parts are tight, there’s very little flex.
I’ve only made one change to it, and I wouldn’t recommend adopting the change immediately. I’ve added longer threaded rod and additional couplers/nuts as spacers on some of the mounts. This is intended to raise those pins so that each belt is parallel with the ground and none of the belts angle upward to the machine arm. If adopting this change, you also have to adjust some settings in the yaml file that attempt to compensate for these angles. That being said, this change is more of a fine tuning and not at all necessary to make great quality cuts. I’d recommend getting things mounted and working as simply as possible, and later, if you would still want, it’s really easy to go back and adjust and fine tune that if you feel it’s worth the additional time. When starting, simplicity really is best and then after you are more familiar with how the machine works (and you have it working well) you can tweak things like this.
The only downside has been if I forget to remove the posts and accidentally kick one while walking through my garage (quite painful).
You don’t need to do it from the start, but a Z-probe is really great addition that is easy to build. Check out my post here (Instructions - How To Make And Set Up A Z-Probe On The M4). Though I think I need to update several things following the 1.0 firmware.