Possible super-simple frame

I know that having the belts angle down towards the work is important to keep the bit in the project on a vertical frame. How important is it on the horizontal version? Is the sled weight eonugh?

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it is not clear that having the belts angle down is benificial, let alone
important in any orientation.

With the older maslow, we found it was much more stable when the chains were
level.

one thing that is very important is that the anchors not move at all when the
belts tighten, having the anchors short and directly attached to the frame helps
this (having the anchor stand off from the frame adds the ability for the anchor
to flex)

David Lang

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I had problems with the sled staying flat on the project when my bottom anchors were too high.

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if they pull up from the sled to the anchor, that would be a problem, but if
they are pulling horizontally, you should be in good shape.

how high were your anchors?

David Lang

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Hi all,

I have two questions:
First, is there an option in the near future to offset the workspace (calibration grid)? I maximized the distance of my anchor points in my workshop, but could not reach all corners of my wasteboard, because the legs of my workbench are in the way of the belts. If I could offset the position of the wasteboard, I could have way more travel. My workaround for now is to reduce the size of the calibration grid, but then I loose this measure on both ends.

The second question is, I probably mounted the anchor points way to high. Now the sled is lifting itself upwards. Is this only a calibration problem, or should the anchor points be lower than the sled? Which height would be optimal and is it useful to have individual heights for every anchor. I made every anchor at an individual height to compensate the height of the reels. How do I need to change the yaml file?

Now some pictures to get a better impression:




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Cool build!

Yes, this is 100% doable. I’ll put it on my list. For cutting this should already not be an issue since you can offset the cut easily with the home button, but right now the calibration grid is always centered.

I think that this is always going to happen. The tension in the belts is always going to want to lift the sled up.

If you want to keep it that way you want to adjust the Z values in the .yaml file for each corner to match up with the heights of the anchor points. If you made them all the same height as the arms they (TLZ, TRZ…etc) would all be 0.

The way my frame is set up the anchor points are the same height as the board that we are cutting on, but that’s not necessarily the optimal choice. I think that more experimenting is needed.

I will work on making the options more configurable to make it easier to experiment with different setups.

Okay, then I need to lower my anchor points. :grimacing: :weary:

Oh, and another thing for you todo list. The names of the variables in the yaml file and the commentary does not fit very well.
e.g.:

Define the distance from the anchor points to the corners of the calibration grid in mm ???

maslow_calibration_grid_width_mm_x: 1260
maslow_calibraiton_grid_height_mm_y: 550

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That is 100% a bug, thanks!

As bar said, that is a problem, ideally each belt should be parallel, slightly
down isn’t a problem, slightly up is more likely to be a problem.

think about what the height of the router would be with the shortest
bit/thickest workpiece that you plan to use and base the height on that.

David Lang

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I put a 4cm piece of wood beneath the sled to “simulate” the height and took then the measurements. Problem was, that the z-axis was also not at the bottom.
This happens, when you try to measure and answer questions to your 8 year old son simultaneously.

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What?

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I tweaked the design slightly so that the hole is now 1/4" beyond the end of the 2x4 instead of just a bit before the end. This lets the frame height be 8’1/2" with a 8’ 2x4, just enough longer to help keep the angles good.

it’s also trivial for me to tweak this for a little bit more length now

I’m really interested in the possibility of a super-simple frame and leaning towards your proposed solution using the 3D printed corner piece you made: Onshape.

Did you manage to get your idea fully functional? If so, would you be willing to share a photo of the finished frame with the Maslow 4 attached?

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