I’m in the middle of assembling a 4’x4’ LowRider V3 for cutting plywood/hardwood (furniture/cabinets), marker/pen plotting, and maybe some inlay work. As I’m in the process of printing the parts right now, I was wondering if there are any specific mods or design tweaks I should consider beyond the standard V3 parts for these tasks (thinking about higher z, multitool, etc.). Also, I’m aiming to try some joinery and thinking about vertical part mounting for it. Any advice or experiences shared would be super helpful! Thanks.
I have a 2.5’x5’ Lowrider V3 right now and working on upgrading it to a larger 4x8, so I can handle a full sheet of plywood. I am wanting to use my LR3 in the same way you have flagged up.
I wouldn’t look at a higher Z, that equals less rigid and more risk of flex. I am already pushing mine too much at factory height and having issues with skipping steps I think. Working on getting some different bits and going to step it back for next round of cuts. The more rigid the machine the happier you are going to be with it cuts and precision.
I would look at the dust hood that Design8Studio has pulled together. The dust is a crazy mess, sort of as expected due to the amount of wood being removed.
I think I am going to remove the controller from the X beam. I don’t like walking up and down with the machine to work with it. I would rather have it on a fixed point and then have the wires run in drag chain or such.
I am currently building the base cabinets for my table, but they aren’t full size in regards to both length and width. There is going to be almost a foot of space that will be open. I am trying to figure out how to have a vertical table so I can mount items there to cut edges, like Frank Howarth of Youtube fame has on his CNC.
Wire in your Z touch plate as you build/wire the machine. Don’t add it after the fact, it is much bigger of a pain. Also wire it with magnet connects or such, so the plate and its wires can be removed from the machine easy. i.e. from the controller to some sort of connection block. Then clipped back in when needed. I wired mine after the fact and it is always in the way now. Going to make it removable when I upgrade the size.
Thanks for the reply. I was wondering about the dust situation. It seems like Doug’s (Design8Studio) dust shoe situation is what I was looking for.
As I was printing the parts I was thinking: do you think the recommended infill %s are sufficient for rigidity/durability? I bumped mine up from 30% → 35% just in case, but I was wondering if that was overkill.
Is there a recommended Z touch plate? Haven’t gotten to that part yet.
Appreciate the thoughts and good luck with the size increase.
I did a remix of Dan’s (@SupraGuy)'s extra tall YZ plates, which adds 50mm of Z height, and glad I did — for me, it was simply because of easier access under the core, and just for possibilities (such as carving tall soft things that don’t require max rigidity, such as foam) — and not in any way expecting the top 50mm to be as rigid as the lower mm’s. It does not cost anything in rigidity on the lower part to have the upper part. All LowRiders are at their most rigid while moving in the lower mm’s of the plates, no matter how tall their YZ plates are. You can get both Dan’s, and my remix of it, in one of my recent remixes on Printables here: Printables
Thanks for the replies @srcnet and @DougJoseph. Based on the build videos I’ve watched, I’ll keep most of the build stock and add modifications when/if needed. However, I think I might start with the 50mm Z height mod off the bat - as it does seem appropriate for my use case.
I did it mostly for gantry cleaeance, but I also use some long bits in the spindle, so it’s worked out well for me. Well, that and I had the 200mm rails, so figured I should use them.
I am sure the one the you can get in the V1 store would work great. When I realized my issue I just grabbed some aluminum out of the spare stock bin and threw one together real quick with some some spare wire and clips.
Wire was from a copier tear down I did years ago. Clips was a spare I found. Tapped a small hole that was shorter than the screw and then just put a eye on the wire and put the screw into the hole and jammed it tight against the bottom it. It ain’t pretty but it works great.
I had not thought about this. The limited space for changing bits and such wouldn’t be as bad with the taller plates. I might have to look into that as well.
I added Doug’s @DougJoseph hidden belt mod, but mounted the Unistrut on top of the table rather than the sides. This gave me an extra 50mm of Z height while still using the stock YZ plates. This gave loads of benefits, like hiding/protecting the Y belts, better end stop adjustment, smoother running in the Y axis plane, 50mm extra Z depth.
Once I had this running, I did then add taller YZ plates, which is great for dealing with thicker stock, but also gave me Z travel reach issues when using thinner stock. Which I overcame by just adding layers of plywood under my stock. This stopped the Z axis from bottoming out.
