Great to chat with Ryan at OpenSauce yesterday, got to see the all new, hot off the printer LowRider 4 (forgot to get pics), looks fantastic, bigger rails and fully 3D printed. Definitely going to be my next build.
Woah, spoilers! Forgot to take pics…
Yeah my humblest apologies, sure it will be properly revealed soon
Thanks for stopping by!!
now i’m sad? i just finished my first v3. or is this still a ways off?
The store says it’s in Beta, so it might be a few weeks.
Nevertheless the LR3 is a brilliant machine to learn the ropes. You are probably not pushing it as hard as you could at the beginning and when you are there, the LR4 has been released and you can contemplate upgrading. Until then, use the LR, ask questions, get to know it.
Since the LR4 so far needs basically the same hardware (and waaay fewer M5 screws), swapping to the 4 might be easier than you imagine and not that cost intensive after all if you come to love CNCing as your hobby.
If you check Ryan’s playlists on Youtube, you might catch a glimpse of a Beta Lowrider 4 though.
or more
Or more.
Or moooore.
Congrats on finishing your LR3! Do you have a bench/table setup you’re happy with? Personally agree with Philipp, any time you invest learning to use, and get value from, your LR3 for CNC jobs will carry forward.
Personally spent as much time, or maybe more even, building a full sheet Sled, and quarter sheet bar height bench. So, silver lining… All the time/material investment in your LR3 setup(s) will make upgrading, or, adding a LR4 much cheaper if/when you build one.
My LR3 and Sled initially built for 4’ x 8’, is mostly used on a bar height bench sized for 2’ x 4’ cuts. I’ve been giving up some performance, and enjoying the open front access, as well as the flexibility to quickly unhook my LR3 for use on the full size sled, not that I use the full size sled much. Am just an occasional hobbyist and space is a premium… Given the CNCs I currently have, and the incremental gains LR4 Beta users are seeing…
Am personally planning to build a stock LR4 with a smaller 2’ X gantry (instead of my LR3’s 4’). So, building a smaller more rigid gantry plus LR4 design improvements are making it easier for me to personally rationalize building an additional LR4 whenever Beta finishes and measured performance gains are known.
I appreciate some folks may prefer to upgrade rather than build another CNC. Am guessing Ryan will eventually put a couple of upgrade kits together for LR3 owners wanting to scavenge LR3 parts to build their LR4. Maybe an upgrade kit with printed parts, and one without printed parts? Guessing these will be relatively cost effective upgrade paths compared to what other manufacturers do to their Customers.
yeah… i’m not that worried. i probably should have put a /s at the end of my comment. will probably just build a second one at that point or upgrade yeah. i can see this machine being like 3d printing with the enders i run right now (till the vcore gets here or i build a mp3dp) as far as “so what if its a little slow machining, as long as it works well and is very affordable i’ll just build another one and run 2 or 3 at once” this is all just bootstrapping 101 for me at this point. i think regardless if any of us had some product we started selling take off huge we’d end up going pro on the equipment or contract it. but the ability to keep overhead ultra low this way… is the name of the game till that miracle happens. so i def appreciate and rep people like ryan and other open source-ish type projects above the commercial options. although i will say that even though my langmuir plasma table wasn’t cheap and maybe i should’ve just built a plasma cnc myself like doug did… it still got me going and comfortable enough with this stuff looking forward to seeing whats in the pipe.
yeah the time and learning definitely does carry forward. learning never ends. not enough time in the day. and i’m finally at a point after a year or so where i’m at least somewhat comfortable with CAD and 3d printing and CNC stuff generally. it seems a natural progression to move towards messing with some kind of industrial robotics at this point (make the machine that makes the parts then learn to run a robot arm that can weld the parts or move them around) its strange because i’m an icu nurse by trade but kind of stumbled into this and realizing now why most of my close relatives are or were engineers because i’m enjoying this a lot more than i expected when originally thought it merely as a means to an end.
as far as the table i will upload a pic here in a sec if i don’t forget. i fabricated my table (rails with cross members ) from 2.5" & 2" mostly 1/4" wall square tube because it was the straightest thing i could find lying around…and actually cheaper than using all the plywood i bought for the purpose but even just tack welding mostly put a little tiny bit too much heat into the ends with the legs so the overhanging ends of the y rails warped about a 3/4 of a millimeter down on the bitter ends (boo hoo right… 0.75mm is just fine)… thankfully i’m barely ok enough at welding that my setup and workholding was decent and the ends warped symmetrically down the same amount on all 4 corners so i shimmed the 2x6s on either end with some soda can aluminum.
was thinking if i keep getting deeper into this cnc/3dp madness i might use this frame for a printNC after i cut a proper torsion box for the lowrider using what i just made
An LR3 kit (or fully assembled LR3) has just about the right amount of hardware to build out an LR4.
The printed parts will be all new.
Ryan is working on having some premium printed parts using better but hard-to-print materials, so some folks may want an LR4 premium printed parts kit to aid in upgrading.
The LR3 remains a great machine, and I bet a lot of LR3 will start out by building an LR4 and table using the LR3.
I see this as a valid use case, and exactly like how some of us have multiple printers we use.
@azab2c - that deployable coffee mug holder makes me smile every time I read that build thread.
Seriously, I need to add one of those to my beta LR4 table!
i mean… as far as i can tell this is the best way to get into cnc routers on a budget. you can always go beefier later… but for what LR3 is capable of with some precision assembly and careful feeds and speeds… this is the way. levels the playing field.
even got me a diamond coated carbide single flute bit to possibly cut carbon fiber drone frames … lol slava ukraini?
My Vcore4 is nearly complete. I was ready to print fenders for my LR3 but my printer was too flaky. I can’t wait to use my new printer to churn out parts for a LR4.
Of course I have too many projects to ever complete them all!
oh damn… you were an EARLY bird. mine hasn’t shipped yet but at least its paid. how long did yours take? also i’ll probably build a mp3dp too at some point next yearonce i get the vcore and learn that corexy thing etc. i need to be able to crank out parts and have proper enclosed temp control but i haven’t even run klipper yet. still on these modified ender 3 v2’s. did you get hybrid?
Mine didn’t take long once I had paid. I think they try to ship them out ASAP. There has been an issue the the IEC port being under specced for US configurations and they’re trying to rectify it. I suspect they need to produce new parts for the electronics enclosure, so I think they’re delayed a bit.
Assembly is easy. I’ve been trying to tune the belts for the last 2 nights. I added the hybrid belts and now I’m thoroughly confused. I plan to go IDEX as soon as it’s available.
Good luck. I had an awesome time building it, and I look forward to greatly improved capabilities compared to my current Jubilee Toolchanger.
Hi Rayn and the team
Firist apricate all the efforts and support
Not sure if it’s late but this is my feedback after using lowrider 2 for last 2 years on plenty projects, hoping it will be beneficial while developing Lowrider4.
The wring plugs provided are loose on the controller side and I was losing signals frequently so I had to glue them to make it more stable a wiring with proper plugs would help.
When homing y Axis I have on side reaching the end stop prior to other I have released all the bolts oping that will release some stress and adjusted the stop blocks position it didn’t help as I have my square within range I decided to live with it I believe the connection to the printed part have some flexibility that causing the issue I would suggest more rigid connection.
Overall rigidity
Consideration of using Linear Guide Rail instead of pipes I could get VEVOR Linear Guide Rail with good price comparing to the pipes cost which is hard to get due to the outer diameter measurement as that will add more rigidity and accuracy to the machine. I know using them on gantry could be a challenge due to the wight but at least replacing the y Axis as I’s only on one side, also on harder cuts the stress swerve the machine a bit left or right when cutting on x axis, adding something on the Y axis without the rail to force the bearing to go straight or using the liner guides with more rigid connect between the plate and the printed part on the gantry.
My bit is on angle to the surface as I noticed having some lines when performing surfacing adjusting the bearings bolts caused the printed part to crack so I decided to live with it using Linear Guide Rail could eliminate the problem or more accurate adjustment would help.
Holes location for the z Axis rails, I could not got it very well on one side so I have some stiffness afer multiple tries the holes start to become loose so I decided to live with it I saw on the LR4 tha printed parts were uses maybe having a proper holes for a bolts would help instead of using screws.
Wight distribution
I have one of the bearing floating specially when the router is on the far end for the y axis on side without the pipe removing the hose from th holder and fixed overhead helped a bit I believe using a better connection between the metal plated the printed parts with linear guides should eliminate the flexibility.
Dust accumulation on the Y axis without the pipe I had to glue a brush where the bearings are and a plastic piece on the plates from inside which made a bit better I would suggest adding an attachment for a flexible brush around it to eliminate the need of continues cleaning.
Add a magnetic flexible brush attachment to the dust collector with 2.5 inch for dust collector as I noticed is more effective than the vacuum for long use as the vacuum was overheating and the dust collector was effective enough.
Conditioning more power on x axis as when using 1 inch round over bit the motor was skipping and I had to lower the depth per pass and the speed to fix the issue, but the cuts are not clean as it’s too slow as per the manufacturer of the bit (Amana).
Adding a limit to the Z axis as overshooting when happen accidentally while controlling manually will bent the couplers.
Adding a template option of using spindle.
Adding a better belt holders as I have one of them lifting a bit, I reprinted the part but the issue is still the same.
Honestly, IMO the LR3 already addresses most of this, it’s quite a different machine from the LR2. The LR4 release candidate is loads more rigid.
Many of your issues are control board dependent. The Jackpot controller already addresses a lot of your software/control concerns.