Okay! Ice carving season has drawn to a close for the 2024/2025 season for me and I’m back home nursing my arms, wrists and fingers back to normal. That means it’s time to get this bad boy finished off.
I’m gonna do a forum search but thought I’d ask in case anyone just knows off the top of their head here. I recall that there was a ER collet modification made to a select number of trim routers on the US side of the now fortified Canada/US border. Was there ever anyone that had a mod for the Makita trim routers to switch them to an ER type collet setup? I’d sure like to be able to use 1/2" bits on this larger machine.
It looks like the gateway to ER20 (which then accepts 1/2" cutters) is at minimum a 1.5Kw spindle which are few and far between or a 2.2Kw spindle of which there are plenty of options. However, most of them also require a VFD (variable frequency drive) box/controller. Add to this that the preferred power source for these would be 220v, not 110 and it starts to add up to “not very convenient” not to mention “costly”. About $500-$650 for the setup.
I’ll stick with the stock Makita and get the machine built and running. I can get 3" to 3 1/2" cutters that have a shank reduced to 1/4". I used them to full cutting depth on my drop table Burly without too much issue so am sure they’ll be fine on this build too. But to be completely honest I should be able to do most of all the work I need to do with this build using the 4" overall, 2" cutting length 1/4" dia. endmills Dan pointed me to (just ordered it along with the trim router).
100%! I was edumicated about those life savers early on (thankfully early on) on my Christmas light journey. I order them by the 1000’s now and always have some on hand.
Just ordered some DuPont leads. I DID give it the old college try but yup - these things still frustrate me to no end. I got 1/5.
I’ve bought 4 or 5 crimping tools, and have one that mostly works. I really hate crimping though. I did end up buying a bunch of pre-crimped leads, but somehow I still end up crimping, and hating every second of it.
Searching didn’t really come up with anything. This is a board right from Ryan, first power up. The only thing not connected is the probe. The probe wires are connected to the pins on the board but nothing on the other end and not shorted out (the LED on the Jackpot isn’t lit for the probe circuit either). Did I accidentally leave the door open? And if so, where is this door? I do feel a draft but i have a lot of ice machines running in here…
I wish, I automate it all so It should not be able to be different.
It really is just easier to mess something up with a setting and a save. Marlin was pretty locked in, you could not really mess anything up, with fluid being easier, it also gives you more freedom to mess up a config.
Now I need to finish the extrusion rail setup and get the Y belts in place. I’m only getting 72mm of Z travel from home to bottomed out. Is this normal with the standard side plates? It looks like I could try to squeak out another 2-3mm at the top of the stroke if I really needed to but to be honest I can likely do everything I need this guy to do for me with 2 1/2 - 2 3/4" of travel. I’ve been spoiled by Dan’s tall plates o the other machine.
