Hi, I known Ryan states that the X axis must be the shorter. However, due to my room constraints it has to be the longer axis. Thinking about a work area of 700mm (27,5 inches) on y axis and 950 (37,375 inches) on x axis.
Will it be a problem?
It will not be a âproblemâ, but it would be more rigid with X being shorter.
That length X is fine though, and smaller than many others.
As long you keep the standard configuration for axes and homing, you should not have a problem. You are just sacrificing some potential performance gain.
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It wont be a problem. This is set for up to 48" in the gantry, anything shorter will at worst be no worse than designed. The x must be the shorter is just for people that want an excessively long gantry.
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Bear in mind you wont be able to cut your strut plates in one operation in this configuration.
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Welcome (back) to the V1E world! Weâre here to help you get your machine up and running! The shortest path to a complete machine that can perform well is to have Y as the longer axis, because:
The one other temporary concern that people run into is that a machine with a longer X axis often cannot cut its own struts in a single process. If youâre comfortable with CNC, it wonât be a problem. If youâre new to CNC, you can look up a variety of indexing methods used to cut longer items on a machine in multiple stages.
When I built my first LR3, I did temporarily leave the Y-rail longer and left it on my âbootstrapâ setup until after I had cut the struts. Then I trimmed everything down to the size I wanted.
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I have a wider X than Y and I also cut my strut plates by flipping them over once. Iâve got a video for it. 
Also, even it might theoretically be a stronger X, I still have to find the point where I wished I had gone for a shorter X, I havenât had problems with neither tiny inlays nor aluminium at 8mm depth. 
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I have a similar problem, but my take on it would be to rename the Y as the X (aka the X axis is now parallel to the tube) and the Y axis is then the gantry moving up and down. My planned area is 2100mm for my âXâ axis (aka the single tube length) by 964mm for my âYâ axis. I am about to start the building of my LR3, so please kindly tell me if I am wrong to assume that I can just change the motor wiring to swap the axis. Thanks!
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You just need to change your machine orientation into your cam software (and orient things accordingly) and leave the axes definition as they are
Make perfect sense, thanks Cesar!
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just make sure you point to where your machine is homing. that way you will know how to orient things
This might lead to problems later when getting support, Iâd just build it as is.
I swapped my X and Y axes with each other, on LowRider v3 and LowRider v4. It changes which corner the machine homes to (a desired goal for me), and orients the CAM work in a way that I prefer. The LowRider v4 comes with a built-in option to have the limit switch on the gantry core moved from the left side of the core to the right side, to accommodate the non-standard homing location, and it also supports moving the limit switch on the YZ side-assembly from the front to the back to accommodate a non-standard homing location.
The most recent time I accomplished it was by changing the logical axes definitions in my configuration file instead of physically swapping wires - if I remember correctly. As long as you pay attention and know what youâre going for, there are no real problems that arise from this other than it can be confusing if during support questions you reference your axes by your new definitions, rather than the old ones.
Thanks Philipp & Doug!
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