Ryan would tell you not to do it though. 
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Well on the subject of things Ryan wouldn’t approve of. I’m considering using 1.25” (31.75mm) 3mm thick DOM steel tube instead of the standard EMT. Doing the deflection calculation for the weight of the router in the middle of just one tube by itself shows a big difference. But with the two tubes connected by the struts it probably won’t make a real difference. Does anyone think going with DOM for the X gantry is a meaningful upgrade? I have a good source of metal near by so the price difference for me over EMT is only like $25 US.
One tube has 1.2" between the top and bottom. Two tubes connected by struts should have much less flex.
From what I’ve seen, the EMT is very strong and not worth replacing.
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I completely agree.
I think you are throwing money at something that isnt a problem. Build it stock with cheap EMT. If you find you arent happy, then switch to the DOM. Your only loss is some cheap EMT and a little plastic for the braces. But I highly doubt you will find you need to change. I know I and several others in the beta pushed these things HARD and the EMT was never once an issue
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I finished installing the belts and powered on the motion system last night. Man seating the x belt was a real pain! But it was super fun to see it move around! Tonight I’ll clean up the area and start squaring the machine.
I ended up using 1"x3" steel tubing as for tracks under the y-z assemblies. This is because the dining table I’m repurposing has a nearly 1/8" dip in the middle. So I settled on this as the easiest way to get the two sides co-planar. Then I’ll just use the machine to flatten the spoil board.
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Nice idea with that steel tubing. I think I’ll do that too 
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Yeah not the cheapest option or necessarily better than wood but for me at the time it was the simplest. I was able to order the tube cut to length for a reasonable price and have them bring it out to my car without me unloading my 1 and 5 year old.
I pre-drilled pilot holes for drywall screws (yes drywall screws in steel justification) for the y rail clips. Then I put the tubes on the table and attached them with some little 3d printed 90 degree clips after checking them for parallel.
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The other day I was testing the machine with a sharpie taped to the core. I chose a svg of a monster truck to keep my 5 year old interested in the process. After a couple successful sketches I said to myself “you know what…send it”. So I slapped in my trim router (not intended to live in the machine I have one with ER-11 collet coming today) and a crappy random v bit from a giant pack of generic router bits someone gave me once and ran the same gcode as I did with the sharpie and it turned out just fine!
My new router which can hold 1/8" bits comes today so I’ll probably get my struts cut soon and post some final build pictures.
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Printed out a quick mount for a magnetic pogo connector for my touch plate. Pretty happy with how it turned out but I’ve got a couple tweaks I might add.
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Congrats on all the progress!
I was already fully confident the drywall screws would do well, and yet I watched the video and was blown away by the upward force it took to either pull a drywall screw out or snap one off.
Yeah I went through a phase of using fancy woodworking and construction screws on things and I still keep them on hand but for most things I prefer drywall screws.
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Drywall screws won’t pull out that easily, but they can shear quite easily compared to normal screws (try setting one of each in a vice and applying side force with a pair of pliers). I’ve had the head of a drywall screw literally twist off when using a cordless drill into hard material.
Also drywall screws will rust in a damp/wet environment.
Sure, for non-critical applications (like holding together a couple scraps of thin plywood) they will do the job (kind of), but for anything that matters (like holding together 2x4’s under load), real screws are a better choice (IMO)
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The black ones Yes (in a matter of days actually) but there are white ones (silvery ) that gets used to do plycem-fiber cement sheets installs, densglass (fiber reinforced drywall and other outside environment application that will last
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Yeah that’s why I keep construction screws on hand. But if it’s not going to see above 50lbs I always end up reaching for drywall screws. If it’s metal that will see load I weld or tap for bolts.
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I freaking love it! That is exactly why I added the screw hole there!! I need to get a bunch of those connectors for the shop.
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Get ones with pig tails! Soldering to the tiny pins was a real pain!
I’m currently reworking the mount to come out to the side to work with Doug’s kinematic mount. Once I’ve tested that one I’ll upload both styles to printables.
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I made a new mount for my touch plate connector that comes out of the side so I can use Doug’s tool mount.
I found what seems to be a good way to solder the tiny pins of the pogo connectors I have. I took a female DuPont connector and cut off about 1mm at the front. After crimping the modified connector I held it onto the pin and soldered it which seemed to work well.
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That’s awesome. Looking sharp.
I think I can call the build officially finished. I got sick of the rickety dining table I was using and decided to weld together a steel one. The great thing about welding is I can order all the parts pre-cut from my local supplier and weld a custom table up in about 2 1/2 hours. This one cost me about $120 to throw together.
Oh and it doesn’t show up well in the picture but I decided to paint my strut plates with whatever spray paint happened to have on hand so they’re sparkly gold!
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That is an awesome table. I have never developed any welding skills, but it looks sturdy without taking up too much space. I also love the pogo connection for the touchplate! I just purchased a few to try something similar. Have you shared the printed bracket?