Horizontal Mounting Questions and More

No Judgement
1

Finally got my 4.1 Maslow put together and after receiving a new control board, both of my z axis motors work now! Now I’m trying to figure out the best way to mount this thing. I’m thinking of going horizontal in the garage as I think it would be significantly cheaper compared to building a vertical frame. I was considering drilling into the concrete but then thought about attaching mounting points to studs on the wall. I’m thinking maybe using something like this?:

However the issue is that I’m having trouble finding something that fits 10mm or 3/8” exactly. How close does the pin need to be to 3/8? If it’s much smaller I would think the slack in the hole would cause inaccuracies but would it be significant enough to cause problems? Could you potentially 3d print a larger or smaller belt end to fix the slack in the hole?
Does the height of the mounts on the wall need to be level with the corresponding belt on the Maslow? Or should I just mount all of them the same height say 5” off the ground? I assume if the height matters, I would need to consider the thickness of the waste board? How much pulling force does the maslow have? Will I be yanking these mounts out of the wall?

Lastly, how important is the squareness of the four points? The way my garage is, two corners would be square but the other two would be over 20 degrees out of square. Will this affect anything or can mounting points be literally positioned anywhere?

Thank you in advance to whoever can provide even a sliver of advice to any of my numerous questions!

2

Fancy wrote:

However the issue is that I’m having trouble finding something that fits 10mm
or 3/8” exactly. How close does the pin need to be to 3/8? If it’s much
smaller I would think the slack in the hole would cause inaccuracies but would
it be significant enough to cause problems? Could you potentially 3d print a
larger or smaller belt end to fix the slack in the hole?

you can 3d print a belt end to fit anything. I have an onshape doc that will
make the part for you at

but you want to pick an anchor what won’t have the belt end slide up (and
especially not slide off, that would ruin your day)

you should be able to 3d print anchors that you then screw to the wall

Does the height of the mounts on the wall need to be level with the
corresponding belt on the Maslow? Or should I just mount all of them the same
height say 5” off the ground? I assume if the height matters, I would need to
consider the thickness of the waste board?

current thinking is that it’s best to have them level or slightly below the
height of each arm (don’t forget to change the z offset settings to match your
setup)

How much pulling force does the maslow have? Will I be yanking these mounts
out of the wall?

there is a long thread on accuracy where this is being measured, I don’t
remember the details right now. But 3d prints routinely hold up, so reasonable
size screws won’t be a problem

Lastly, how important is the squareness of the four points? The way my garage
is, two corners would be square but the other two would be over 20 degrees out
of square. Will this affect anything or can mounting points be literally
positioned anywhere?

the bottom left and bottom right define the X axis but if the top two are not
aligned, everything should work.

David Lang

1 Like
3

David,
Could you provide an example applying the offset measurements for the belt mount height? I have been following numerous threads about the calibration process and nothing has addressing the horizontal mount heights matching the belt arm heights. I plan to calibrate with spoil board and cut board placed ~ 1.5” off the ground, then measuring the arm heights and adjusting each mount point to the same height. Where is the offset applied and which measurement, is used. An example would be beneficial to all.
Thank,
Gder

4

Gder wrote:

Could you provide an example applying the offset measurements for the belt
mount height? I have been following numerous threads about the calibration
process and nothing has addressing the horizontal mount heights matching the
belt arm heights. I plan to calibrate with spoil board and cut board placed ~
1.5” off the ground, then measuring the arm heights and adjusting each mount
point to the same height. Where is the offset applied and which measurement,
is used. An example would be beneficial to all.

The Z offset height is the difference between the height of the belt at the
anchor and the height of the belt at the arm.

the easy way to do this is If you trust your floor to be pretty flat) is just to
measure the height from the floor to the belt at the anchor, then move the sled
to the edge of your wasteboard+workpiece and measure from the belt to the floor
there and subtract the anchor measurement from the arm measurement.

I am not where I can do a quick picture or video to show how easy this is

but running all the numbers step by step so you can see how different things
affect this.

the default anchors are 16mm thick, with the 6mm belt in the middle of this, so
the bottom of the belt is 5mm from the surfact the bottom of the anchor rides on
(say your garage floor, but it could be a washer on the floor, or some structure
that lifts this point off of the floor, but for easy math, let’s say it’s the
floor)

you then have the thickness of your wasteboard (say 1 in foam, so 25.4mm) and
your workpiece (say 18mm plywood) to get to the bottom of the sled.

Then with the router all the way down, you have the sled, the steppers, the
bottom clamp, and part of the arm to the lowest arm, let’s say this is 20mm

the arm is ~21mm thick, with the 6mm belt in the middle, so about 7.5mm from the
bottom of the arm to the bottom of the belt (since that’s how I measured up from
the floor)

so this gives us a belt height at the arm of 70.9mm

we subtract the 5mm at the anchor and the z offset for the lowest arm would be
66mm

the next arm would be 21mm more, etc.

David Lang