Agreed. I recently cut the plywood for mine, so it is a little late for me. However, I was considering cutting a template out of 1/4" plywood, with square cutouts where the blocks should go. I don’t know whether or not this would be useful.
@theHipNerd, I have one question related to the incident at ~12:30 minutes into the move, where you had to get a special, rigid, coupler. I was going to mount the pulley directly to the motor, no coupler needed. Is there a reason that wouldn’t work?
@MeticulousMaynard, one piece of feedback. I haven’t checked this in detail. It seemed like some of the inside corners were dog-boned, and others weren’t. I am not sure if this is due to my machine missing the dog-bones, or or something else.
I have one thought related to the z-axis drift problem. I have been working on machine calibration for a while. Mostly, I have been working to create a Holey Calibration process, which is a derivative of @madgrizzle’s original Holey Calibration. In that effort, I have come to believe that my right motor is missing pulses, and that is causing inaccuracy in the x,y positioning. I had an experience very similar to @Jametek’s here. Also, here is one suggested resolution, by @WoodCutter4. When I had the problem, I wiggled the connections between the Arduino and the motor. While I haven’t that problem since, I am still unsure about whether or not I am seeing drift as a result of missed pulses.
Related to the missed pulses topic, I looked at the Firmware, to see where the software is counting the pulses. I believe it is here, the logic is described on lines 157 through 204. A skipped pulse can happen if two pins simultaneously change state, in which case the Firmware doesn’t know which direction the encoder turned. Skipped pulses are handled by making an assumption. It will assume a two-pulse move, either in the positive or negative direction, depending on the specific scenario.
I am pretty sure we could create some diagnostics around these skipped pulses (two pins simultaneously change state). It looks like the only two individuals who have touched it are @bar and @krkeegan. I don’t have time to do that work right now, but I am hoping someone else sees the need and does have the time.