0.6 inch per pass? If so, that’s way too deep… a “rule of thumb” is a depth per pass equal to half the width of your bit (just a rule of thumb, you can realistically go deeper)
It would vibrate once it reached .6 after several passes at .15.
Ok… that’s pretty interesting. That certainly points to a sled balance issue.
the beauty of the original design is the heavy rigid router was supported via the router base housing all the way down to the cutting surface. Anytime one removes that support, raises the center of gravity then the vibrating router must be supported very rigidly.
I saw a post a while ago where someone used a z axis with a cut down 2" tall rigid router base to support the router all the way down to the surface.
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After spending time with my machine adjusting the hell out of everything I still have a vibration at deeper depths of cuts. I realized that my sled is warped. It rocks back and forth on flat surface. I’m not sure if this is new or has always been the case and I’m just now noticing it. So I am going to have to rebuild the sled.
Does anyone have an opinion on a c beam z axis vs. the meticulous z axis. I don’t think I have seen a good dust collection with the c beam yet. Maybe a 3d printed part of some kind would work. I do not have a 3d printer and that is why the meticulous z axis was attractive to me.
I haven’t actually had a chance to try it yet, but for my spindle C-beam dust collection, I cut the top off of a 1 liter bottle, and hot glued a tailpiece and slip-jointed waste arm under sink drain pipe (pp, not pvc) to the side of it. I then mounted the waste arm pipe to the sled and attached a vacuum adaptor to the other end of the waste arm. The dust collection shroud (top of plastic bottle) is cut big enough to allow the spindle to fully seat, and hopefully collect most of the wood chips through the drain pipe to the vacuum. It doesn’t look real pretty, but it was nearly free, and didn’t require me to design and print a dust shroud and pipe.
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I bought a 200mm rail system similar to the Meticulous Z and have been building my own Z axis similar to the Meticulous Z. My biggest change is that I have been doing it with fairly simple hand tools, like using a plunge router to drill the holes straight. I’m at the point that I need to add supports for the upright and attach it to a sled. Now that you bring up your sled being warped I wonder if I will have the same problem as my boards aren’t very flat. Humidity in Hawaii is quite high and I would imagine that adds to the warp. I dream of making my sled from a piece of plastic counter material, that would definitely keep it from being warped in my mind. Could you flip your sled over and use the other side the outside is touching instead of the high spot? Look forward to seeing how you solve the problem!
Oh, I haven’t figured out dust collection on mine. I have thought of using my Maslow to create a sled with the dust port as a recess carved into the sled, but not all the way through, then having the vacuum hose go into a hole. I may be able to build my sled this way, but I’m not positive if my little Dremel router will do the work and I’m not sure if my father-in-law’s big router is here yet.
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I rebuilt the meticulous z axis sled. Adjusted the chains and ring properly. I have made a couple cuts and I do not have the vibration chatter marks happening. The warped sled, with maybe some things a little out of alignment on the sled build, was what my problem was. Im going to do a full sheet cut today and we will see where we are. I feel hopeful.
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