My core is rather out of vertical alignment. It sags forward. I’ve tried tightening the back bolt on the clamps, and it helped but it’s still not very close to straight. Is this a print problem? A user error?
To me it only looks like the dust collection is sagging, not the whole core, which should be more or less hard to achieve because of the crossed rails, holding it in alignment.
I could never not have my core be wonky. Every time I felt like I had things basically squared up it would be loose again in no time at all.
The wheels aren’t all in contact. There’s definitely wiggle room there but I can’t get rid of it. I’m thinking of pulling it apart to make sure there’s nothing in the way of the surfaces meeting as well as changing my dust collection set up so it’s not hanging off the front. It’s taken me about 16 months to get this far because of lack of time. So I don’t really want to pull it all apart again.
They should all make contact. You can remove the core clamps, tighten the middle bolt first and then reinstall them, which often helps.
The middle bolt, you mean the one through the bearing that sits parallel to the plane of the table?
Have you actually tried tramming it to verify? Even a simple wire hanger bent into a long stylus and chucked into your router will tell you if the router is out of square. I… agree… (shudder) with Philipp, it looks like your dust collection is not co-planar with your core. You haven’t heard any creaking or cracking during any bolt tightening around the core, have you? Gorilla-hands is a common cause for core failure. (I almost said gorilla-fisting, but you lot would have gotten the wrong idea; buncha degenerates…)
edit: Can’t believe I completely missed commenting on my own sagging core and hose (although that’s common for someone of my age and activity level)…
I have. I trammed the corners to the base using a dial indicator and got them within about .01" of each other. I noticed the core was out of alignment when I started drilling holes to hold down my spoil board. The tilt became more obvious as the router got lower and the holes are at an angle. The wheels aren’t all in contact either.
I see someone thumbed up my question about which exactly the back bolt was so I assume that I got their point correctly. I’ll pull off the back clamps and try that first. See if I can get all the wheels in contact with the rail.
If I can’t do that, I’ll reprint the parts in the back. I forget what they’re called, the ones that hold the bearings.
Thank you, Philipp! I just loosened the clamp bolts tightened the back one re-tightened the top and bottom bolts on each clamp and suddenly the play is gone. Before I could create probably a millimeter to 1 and 1/2 mm of space between the bearing and the rail when I rocked the core and now it’s dead solid. And everything appears to be in contact. Thank you very very much for your help.
You are welcome.