A couple of assembly notes/warnings or whatever…
First off… great job! Good directions and all the parts are top notch.
But, so that maybe somebody else won’t make the same mistakes I did:
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Take the handles off the router… I hadn’t. It might be possible to make it all clear, but that’s a mess. Also, do that before you put the linkages in the way
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Somehow find a place to put the linkage points on the sled that don’t cause you to drill through into your z-axis mount. I actually caught it before drill hit metal, but… I’m still struggling to get the z-axis mounted so that the linkage fits with it’s support block and still clears the router. I’m going to have to modify the support block on that side.
Part of #2 comes from the fact that I did as suggested in the instructions and used a ‘B’ linkage bar to measure from the router center point. By the time I found I had a conflict, that linkage was all glued and not nearly as accessible, so I didn’t want to remeasure it all.
My current plan is to fake all this up so that it works reasonably well and use the machine to cut a new sled. This one I cut out by hand and have been hacking on anyhow. I’ll use CAD/Maslow to re-measure this stuff so that things are clear.
Next up (sorry)… one design issue I see… the chain attachment points. Strong enough, no problem, and neat idea. But I’m afraid they are fiddly to disconnect. So far I’ve had a fair number of times I want to drop the router off the ends of the chains to do whatever. That’s easy with the stock design, not so much with this.
Please don’t take that as criticism… especially since you did this without a real unit to play with - Just an observation. It may be as easy as changing to a larger/longer cotter pin so that I can reach them without pliers (just thought of that).
Anyhow, here’s a picture…