A laser diode can’t cut through aluminum, just engrave it, right? Shouldn’t cut an ihole. 
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Yeah, but I’d engrave it with a V-Bit… 
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They make the little hand held buzzers for a reason🤑 but i think its for me.
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That makes perfect sense. Yes. You can auger those quickly. Hopefully, you don’t do that.
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If laser is not an option, maybe a 105 dremel envraving bits would be a better choice than a V-Bit:
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Neil, how wide are the boards on the left and right of your table? I am doing the same on the MPCNC at the moment and if I upgraded I’d like to do the same thing.
And how big is your work area? Could not find it in the thread. 
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6” on left, 7” on right because I can’t math, and I believe the final work area ended up being 63” x 37”
I got some of that ‘bigger is better just in case’ crazy, so it’s a bit bigger than it really should be. I need to come up with some projects to justify the size.
I’m thinking a contour carved piece of walnut 60x34” as a statement wall piece. Just haven’t had time to figure out how to do contour paths in Carveco Maker
I had a full day in shop today- I’ve got stuff finishing. But tomorrow I’ll take some video of the spoilboard etc I’ve been using. Basic, but works and replaceable
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Just got the break even point where the LR3 has paid for itself.
It’s been running less than 3 months.
Thanks Ryan!!
And now I’m running a personal job, I’ve noticed something loose- how do I tighten the back lower bearings on the core so they contact the lower rail? They aren’t, currently. So when my router plunges, im getting a small deflection that puts my bit off course by 0.5-1mm. Only noticed it because I’m milling a walnut earring box for wife and my magnet holes (3mm diameter) were coming out oblong in the same direction for each of 8 holes.
I tried snuggling up the bolts, but it wasn’t doing anything. I could crank them down harder but didn’t want to break anything.
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I do believe that means you are way overtightening the clamps and it is pulling it open or your trucks are so far out of square you had to overtighten the back clamps.
The last thing to check is loosen your tool mount to see if that was skewed and pulling the rails apart.
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Which clamps? I don’t think I was overdoing tightening, actually thought I was a bit loose, but I’m not exactly the expert. In fact, one of the nuts wasn’t even engaged into the nylon thread part and it was freely spinning
Let me know which ones to back out and I’ll keep running it until I see them move during operation
Thanks Ryan
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Front of the core the Z clamps. If you over tighten those you can pry the core open. Make sure with those all the way loose the Z rails actually sit all the way in, if not it is a Z axis tool mount issue.
You kinda have to work all three aspects at the same time.
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Awesome, I’ll check it out.
I’ll get some time this evening- I’ll post pics to make sure I’m messing up the correct stuff
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Have you uploaded the step/stl files anywhere? I’d be interested in both
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The STL files for which parts?
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I’ve asked in the laser mount thread
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Sure- I’ll find them and send them
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Dude you are rocking the projects output! Cool stuff. Somehow quite a few posts had gone unseen by me, quite a while back, and I just now somehow stumbled onto them. Impressive!
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I appreciate you saying that- high praises coming from you.
I took a week of for the holidays, backnin the shop next week. A couple BIG projects then a few more smaller boxes planned. Should be fun
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Does the arm with the vacuum hose actually move back and forth on the rail or is it blocked by the zip-ties? I am designing an arm for my suction and am not sure whether it needs to move back and forth or if it can be static as long as it’s got a joint at the wall.
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It moves, but it’s so high up and there’s enough ‘slack’ in the hose, that it doesn’t really need to unless I do something where the material is long. So if the end of the material goes past the mid point of the table, you can see the arm swing and retract as the gantry moves along X
If it’s high enough to provide slack in the hose, and reaches at least to the middle of the table in X, I don’t think it needs to be articulated. I only did the drawer slide instead of make a hinge because I had it laying around
V2 will be a bent piece of 1” conduit with a couple of trollies holding the hose, or maybe a total redesign with a hinge. Torsion box idea, with the hoses actually inside it like this
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