Really mega great work you are doing. I am very happy with the V3, and want to make the V4. But now I also want to improve my table, I would like to make the drive belt at the front disappear, so that you can lift a plate onto the table more easily without hitting the belt. I saw the solution of Doug from design studio, super nice idea. But I actually do not want the motor to stick out any further because of the doors that I want to make around the CNC machine, for dust and noise .
My idea is to extend the front carriage downwards, so that I can place the running surface and the timing belt lower than the milling surface. So actually make a kind of extra groove in the table.
now I try to load the STL in my 3D CAD tools, but these are impossible to adjust, which I also understand very well because of copy rights. Do you have any idea how to tackle this best. The other question is Sean, would it be possible to share the YZ_Plate_Min as a step file? If you donāt want to do this I understand that very well, you spend such an enormous amount of time in this
thanks a lot everyone this forum helped me so much during the build
Gr peter
I assume you mean Ryan, the creator of the machines?
Ryan shares the STLs for free for printing, but CAD files are not available for his machines.
They are free, but not open source.
If you want to make modifications, youāll have to use one of the tools like FreeCAD or Fusion, etc that can deal with meshes and get them converted into solid bodies. Then youāll have to use the tools to recreate the relevant areas of the bodies if you need proper geometry.
Even without recreating the whole thing, you can generally do a lot. All mods that exist for V1 machines were created from STLs only, with the exception of a few tool mounts, etc that might have been released as STEP files
What size table are you looking to build? If your usable cutting area is small enough, did you already consider ālandscapeā orientationā¦
If you build in this orientation, and/or change the belt locations (increasing pivot distance between router bit), you will very likely end up with a less capable machine compared to building the default stock āportraitā oriented build. I have no idea how less capable .
Consider building and trying stock build, figure out how capable that machine is, then try mods that add convenience possibly at the expense of cut performance and quality.
Fwiw - I also dislike front belts being in my way on a bench I also do non CNC stuff on. Fortunately, the belts are easy to unclip and move out of the way, so itās not a big deal.
Give it a shot how it is intended to be used. There is a good chance you will find that it isnāt as much of an issue as you thought it would be before hand. The particular mods you are talking about will reduce the ability of the machine for sure. How much is not known because what you are wanting to do hasnāt been tested. But everything with how the machine is now has been thoroughly tested by Ryan and the Beta team and we know that it works REALLY well.
Try it how the āchefā has made it before adding āsalt and pepperā to it. Once you can experience how it was intended to work, then you will have a much clearer picture of anything you want to change, if anything.
Even though I made a hidden belt mod for the LR3, I built the pre-release LR4 as āstock,ā and Iām building a full-size LR4 (to replace my LR3) with the belts as normal, for now.
On my LR3, I also built it first with the belts above, as normal, and only later switched to a hidden belts mod. There are some good reasons for building stock first, and for carefully weighing moving stepper motors.
The LowRider design has a uniqueness among just about all CNC machines. Most are pushing the spindle (or router) down into the material, moving it away from the gantry, and more so as the cut gets deeper. This means all those other CNC machines are at their weakest when they need strength the most. This is overcome on pricy commercial machines by over engineering (seemingly to a major degree). The LowRider is the opposite. It is at its greatest strength when it is at its lowest position. This means 1) it does not need to be stupendously over engineered, 2) its weakest cut height is high. Since super thick items are rare, seldom occurrences, this means the strength is positioned where needed. Itās a great plan.
Moving the stepper motors down on one side, to get the belt down, is doable. It does put the machineās weaker zone down closer on the side that was altered, by (presumably) the same distance by which the steppers were lowered. Such detriments could be overcome by adding more structural strength, aka over engineering.
Itās your machine and you can certainly do what you want with it. Although I encourage building stock first, if at any time you do move a belt downwards, my understanding is the non-rail side belt would result is less detriment than if you moved the rail side down. My understanding is the rail side takes the lionās share of the forces, so keeping it stock will mean better results.
Please keep us updated on your build so we can celebrate with you!
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