Z-300mm rails, long travel Z movements

I got too long rails so now thinking of modifying the Z assembly. (reusing from the Meticulous…)
I have made up a rough solution in Tinkercad. Any thoughts of why it should NOT work ?
Mounting brackets not shown.
– I get up to 140 mm of Z travel → easy tool change.
– Fits my Makita router with 65mm body.
– lower CG with stepper near Z 0.
– Allows for spindel close to the Z 0 for deep cuts.



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beautiful rendering and for doing it in tinkercad, it must have taken you a good long while. well done! I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I have a couple questions: are you planning to change bits on the machine without removing the router? (nothing wrong with that otherwise, you could just cut the bars down with a dremel and a cutoff wheel). The extra z height won’t do much for you other than raise your center of gravity unless you are using crazy long bits. I think it looks workable, but I don’t really see a benefit to it being so high. I made my meticulous knock-off with 200 mm rail because I thought the support backplane was way oversized, but that is just my opinion and may not be worth much. I didn’t solid model it or do any moment calculations. I just built it and cut.

Orob. Thx for sharing.
For me Tinkercad is very usefull to draw concepts( as long as they are not organic shapes.). Key to use TC is getting the hang of the ‘align’ tool.
And yes changing bit with the router in place was my thought. Thinking I then only need to adjust Z home. And yes reducing length is on my list, just making sure I can do the easy bit change as my main use will be routing MagRacing tracks with 0.7mm bit - they are easy to break.

wow. a 0.7 mm bit would be just asking for me to break it. I snapped a 1.8" bit the other day by bumping the sled while it was running.

I struggle getting enough torque to release the collet with the router on the sled, so I really like the screw clamp that lets the router slide in and out quickly so I can swap bits off the sled relatively fast and drop it back in and twist it in place. Plus I pull the router and run it in its stock base for finishing cuts off the maslow as well.

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Well, it took some time… This is how it ended up.
I got a generous 150 mm lift for easy bit change. I can see that the drive shaft for the lift can get dusty, but I have provided space to lift it up to the other side of the lift rod. Will also make it easier to inspect/change belt.

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And because I lean it up to my garage walls I added a few levelling devices on the legs to make life easy. At 15 degrees.

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Just a note that we don’t know that 15 degrees is optimum. We do know that 20
degrees is too much, and 5 degrees is too little, but you may want to experiment
with 10 degrees or so

if it leans back too far, the friction on the sled is too high and the sled
sticks

if it’s not leaning back far enough, when you try to run the Z into the
workpiece, the sled lifts off instead.

optimum would be tipped back just far enough that the sled doesn’t lift as you
plunge.

David Lang

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Thx. I can always rearange to an other angel if I see the need.

Finally got to upgrade my router clamp. Did only have 2 rail blocks at the time. Now 4.

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