Has anyone mounted straight to a concrete floor WITHOUT the plastic brackets? Thinking about two flush mount holes that aren’t easily tripped over or broken when not in use. Is this a terrible idea?
I just did this yesterday. Calibration running this morning, so I can’t yet speak to the results. I put a drop in anchor at each of the four mounting points and some around the perimeter of my work area to give work holding options. In the mounting points I am using a nylon spacer below the belt end and a nylon washer above.
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I am dying to hear how THIS works because this was our EXACT idea. If you would share which anchors you used, I’d love to recreate that setup
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I used red head drop in anchors threaded for 3/8. My calibration is still running, but slowly working to higher fitness score. I suspect that I need to get the belt ends higher than they are, so am printing some thicker spacers today.
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Will every calibration take this long or are you just trying to tweak it? I’m getting nervous seeing everyone’s challenges over the last few weeks and I’m so VERY new to this that I’m terrified whether or not I can even make it work now
I’ve been working on this for about a year now; I was an early supporter of the initial KickStarter, but between day jobs, other pastimes, and a dearth of space, I’ve only done work in the context of a few theatrical projects, so less than six months altogether of part-time tinkering.
It was a struggle at first—I made some unforced errors in first assembly, I didn’t have a clear sense of how things interacted, and Maslow 4.0 hardware had some issues that were part of the mix—but the 4.1 hardware, together with firmware/software improvements, and my improving understanding of what the machine does and what I need to do have most recently yielded excellent results for my purposes.
I’m a stubborn old cuss, and I persisted in the face of what seemed at times to be insurmountable challenges, and I’m confident that the next time I set things up for a project, things will go fairly well.
The support in these forums from @bar, @dlang, @md8n, and many others has been critical.
The “new” calibration procedure can seem interminable—before I understood what was going on, I assumed it was getting stuck in a loop and interrupted it, which was a mistake—but if one’s frame is fairly true and good and stiff, the fitness numbers continue to improve with each pass and will eventually resolve. Once it’s done once, one needn’t run another unless the frame changes or the software undergoes a major change that requires it.
It’s an amazing machine (although it’s very much a work in progress), and there’s nothing comparable in price that can cut large stock.
Calibration completed overnight (I had to re-start because I realized that I had a twist in one of my belts) and it was able to get to .77. I did take the opportunity provided by needing to restart the calibration to put the thicker spacers in that I had printed out.
I’m going to do a little bit more digging to make sure that I fully understand operating procedures and then will be trying my first cut. Likely I will be doing some dry runs without the end mill.
I’ve been using drop in anchors too at the local maker-space here (because people kept breaking the plastic ones) and they work great!
Got any specifics on exactly what kind you are using??? We have a pyrotechnic facility and there are people in and out that aren’t quite so careful
Rayn
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I used these guys:
But not because they are particularly special, it’s just what my local Granger had in stock
I glued in pool cover anchors with JB Weld. I am embarrassed to admit that I have not actually finished -assembling- my Maslow 
The pool anchors are nice in that they are closed on the bottom and designed to be plugged with their bolt and have a hex hole looking up. Unfortunately, I will have to either make special bolts to match the Maslow bolt holes or custom ends. Haven’t decided yet.
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Rod wrote:
Unfortunately, I will have to either make special bolts to match the Maslow
bolt holes or custom ends. Haven’t decided yet.
I have a cad model for custom ends (both in bolt hole and in thickness, so you
can make them the same thickness as the arms to simplify the z offset
measurements)
David Lang
I’m interested in the CAD model, assuming I can open it with Creo…
Rod wrote:
I’m interested in the CAD model, assuming I can open it with Creo…
I’ve got it in onshape in this tab
it lets you set the overall thickness, the hole size and the length of the
entire end from the center of the hole
the reason for the question on layer height is that it supports a way of doing
the holes without support material (it bridges the sides of the holes in one
direction, then in the other direction, but this needs to know your layer height
when printing)
David Lang