Maslow 4 assembly guide feedback

[Puddly]

Thanks @jwolter
My maslow is comming today and i was reading through the assembly instructions and the arm assembly seemed the most confusing. So perfect timing

[lthomas987]

Looking at this it looks like I have my top two arms installed in the wrong order. I wonder if this is part of my calibration problems? Seems likely. Now to decide if I want to disassemble and fix it or change the heights in the yaml file.

[dlang]

Laura Thomas wrote:

Looking at this it looks like I have my top two arms installed in the wrong
order. I wonder if this is part of my calibration problems? Seems likely.
Now to decide if I want to disassemble and fix it or change the heights in the
yaml file.

if they are still pointed in the right direction for where they are plugged in,
you can just change the anchor heights.

the suggested order was picked so that arms pulling in opposite directions are
near the same height to reduce tipping as you move back and forth. I don’t know
how useful this is as it seems to me that you spend more time changing direction
(which goes from the bottom set of arms pulling to the top set of arms pulling)
then you do reversing direction.

David Lang

[lthomas987]

Thanks! that will be a ton faster than disassembling and reassembling, and I can just document my correct values so that if I ever have to wholly replace a maslow.yaml again I remember to do. Also I think tipping is probably less of a problem in a vertical orientation.

[bar]

@jwolter

Rather than just complain about all of this, I offer the following illustration:

OMG you are an absolute HERO!! This is 100% what we need to make that step more clear.

@lthomas987

Looking at this it looks like I have my top two arms installed in the wrong order.

The order is somewhat important to balance out the forces on the machine also, but if you don’t have any issues with tipping then don’t worry about it.

[jwolter]

Adding a link to some feedback in a different thread.

New Maslow Setup Feedback

(You need a section for folks to post feedback on the new build instructions) So, got my new Maslow Friday and dug in right away, not having a frame set up yet, I just wanted to put things together Some random feedback (in no particular order): The tolerances on the Idle Shaft and the holes where it fits in the Control Arm housings is super tight, I had to hammer the shaft into the holes and it made assembling the two halves of the control arm assemblies a bit scary (yet more ha…

[jwolter]

And another one.

TIL (Assembly suggestions)

Just about finished assembly. [PXL_20240422_220503533] A few suggestions/ideas: Before starting, if you don’t have a 2mm Allen wrench handle, make yourself one from a 3/4" dowel or 3d print one. I took a 1" length of dowel, drilled a 2mm hole through it end to end then added a saw kerf on one end going half way down. Insert the provided Allen wrench into it and you will save yourself a lot of time and frustration. [PXL_20240422_190926881] Assembling the arms I found that placing the ro…

[ChrisWeiss]

@codeoptimist

1. I did go and get an index card to put between the gears and plastic, that was helpful.

I used a torn-off piece of the superglue blister-pack.
(Hunh, it renumbered the list for me)

[ChrisWeiss]

To respond to my own thread (which is elsewhere)…
The fan only runs when the motors are on, thats helpful to know.
I had to really crank up the initial torque to get things retracting. Not sure if that has anything to do with the tight tolerances on the idler shafts (and the judicious use of a hammer to get them to seat) or what. It seemed each motor wanted it’s own amount of juice - None at the default 1400, first 3 at 1600, 1700, and 1800, and the last little bugger didnt budge until I cranked it up to 2700.

It looks like a beast! I’m going to have to finish up some of the other projects ASAP!

[dlang]

it turns out that the motors have some play in them as you tighten them down, if
you move them away from the idler before you tighten them down, it doesn’t take
as much current to move everything.

David Lang

[jwolter]

@ChrisWeiss

In the (otherwise great) image and video of what order to put the control arms on the router shaft, I still had to go back and keep looking to make sure I got it right. JWolter’s image is too difficult to tell that the motors go down and not up. I got pretty far into that step before I realized I had them all upside-down. And in the GIF, it’s just too darn short and the power cord is obscured.

Thanks for that feedback, great observation. Even as I was putting it together, I was thinking that pointing out the collet to indicate that the router is pointed toward the user is good, but perhaps too subtle. I didn’t even think about the orientation of the arm! If it confused you, it will undoubtedly confuse others. I added some explanatory text to explicitly address the orientation of both parts. How’s this?

…and because I believe in right to modify, here’s the svg source for the png above. @bar, I recommend using the png because I noticed my browser shifted all the text when you added the svg to the guide.

[bar]

I’ll update the guide! Great work

[knorrisster]

I need replacements for several of the magnets, dropped them and can’t find them.

[bar]

Shoot an email to Anna@maslowcnc.com and we’ll send you some

[Russ]

I had to disassemble/reassemble my M4 and several of the arms recently, and I thought I’d share some feedback.

I had the same issue others did, where I tightened the motor to the arm first, then put the drive and idler gears on, and it was a very tight fit on a couple of my arms. At the time, I considered loosening the motors and adjusting the fit, but decided to just forge ahead. Turns out that was not a problem. I did have trouble with my first retract all, but after a couple of extend/retract cycles, all was well. When I disassembled the arms later, none of the idler gears were tight to the motor gear like they were when I did the initial build. I suspect the force the motors apply is greater than the clamping force of the machine screws, so the motors drifted to a good location.

Second surprise: when I disassembled my arms, all of the grub screws holding the motor gear on to the D shaft were loose. I could easily remove the motor gear by hand on all but one of them. I blame this on doing the initial assembly with a stubby T8 driver instead of the supplied 2mm allen wrench. I dug out the allen wrench and torqued the grub screws good when I reassembled.

Another minor change when I reassembled the arms and uprights on the router, I put the arms on, then put the bottom clamp on and connected it to the uprights before tightening the clamp. That seemed like a good idea to me so you have a solid stack clamped to the router, instead of possibly having the top and bottom clamp attached to the router and possibly pulling against each other.

And last, I discovered that the router base that came with my DeWalt router makes a good holder for the arms during assembly:

And that reminds me, if you have to take an arm apart, but painter’s tape over the side with the nuts to keep them contained. And cut up credit cards are great to slip between the halves of the arm to get them to separate.

Hope this helps someone…

Russ

[jwolter]

@Russ

Second surprise: when I disassembled my arms, all of the grub screws holding the motor gear on to the D shaft were loose.

Out of curiosity, did you apply Loctite to them when you installed them?

[Russ]

No, I don’t think it was suggested in the instructions, so I didn’t use the threadlocker on those. In hindsight, maybe I should have. Given the issues I’m having, I expect I will be doing more disassembly soon, if I notice the grub screws are loose again I will probably put the threadlocker on them.

[jwolter]

You’re right there’s no threadlocker in the instructions. I don’t recall if I put some in anyway. I think it’s a good idea. @bar

[george]

A few items (maybe some of them repeats, sry).

• The guide was overall great and easy to follow with straightforward chunks and great photos. I’d chunk it up even more and make a little more robust table of contents so folks can easily jump around as they troubleshoot later on.
• Torque: This is bound to cause much hubub, but I think at least some of the bolts should be torque specd. Here’s why: It’s pretty easy to strip, peen or break something when going through the assembly. Even with a ginger touch, there are some steps that require a certain amount of pressure to mate two surfaces or bring something into alignment, which makes tightening with just the right force a bit tricky. Bring the hate!
• A calibration troubleshooting guide would be awesome! It seems to be giving enough folks trouble and there seems to be a critical mass of workarounds that are seeming to work that collecting them in official documentation might be nice. SEEMS!

(This all feels very whiny considering I don’t have much, any, time to contribute back.)

[Fred_Nock]

This was one of the hardest steps for me too. I used m3x14mm bolts instead of the regular ones and it made it much eaisier. Maybe add 7 of the long bolts to the kit instead of just the 4 for the fan?