ZenXY Table size

I am not sure if I should go with 12mm mdf painted white or go with oak, perhaps oak shelves cut into the necessary pieces.

What do you think would look the best?

I think the answer largely depends on the aesthetic of the room where you are going to put the table. Personally, I struggle to get a clean finish on MDF, and I have a preference for real wood, but Iā€™ve seen some very nice work done in MDF.

I recently painted a lot of MDF shelves and the last ones turned out much better, I had a roller the right size and I painted with a color made for MDF.

However, oiled or waxed oak could be very nice finish!

I just thougt about wiring and perhaps the possibility to have a screen and some inputs. I have seen some topics that indicated wifi capability for the table. Not sure what IĀ“ll do.

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Iā€™ve avoided wifi with my Primo. To me, it adds another failure point for long jobs, but there are a lot of forum posts on the topic. Of course, messing up on a sand table does not have the same conquences as a 5 hour routing job. Choices for wifi seem to be either buying a control board with built-in wifi, or purchasing a Raspberry PI and using that to send the g-code to the control board. The recommended board for the ZenXY table has built-in wifi.

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I see your point!

I used to use octoprint a lot but now I just use the sd card and a notification on my phone when the print is about to be finished.

I looked for the recommended board but it was sold out? Am I missing something?

Also, those raspberry pi are impossible to find here.

I love the wifi for my Primo and LR3, but it depends on how you use it. The wifi could go down and it would not affect my cut job at all.

I use the wifi to upload jobs to the SD card. I do the CAD and CAM on my main computer, upload the jobs to the CNC and run them from there. To me, this represents less risk and less chance of failure from removing and installing the SD card all the time.

My Repeat printer is the only one that I need to sneakernet the files onto by moving an SD card, and itā€™s a hassle. I am working on a change to move that to wifi asap.


I have a soft spot for oak. I love the grain, and a nice natural finish seems to be a classic look that never goes out of style.

That said, you can get some excellent results from MDF with a smooth finish that can look very pleasing with something as technical as the ZenXY. I put mine in an Ikea LACK table (BTW, my glass top is an Ikea UTRUSTA glass shelf) and I am quite happy with the result, and it was quite inexpensive as well. A simple single colour finish could work to make the table a visual accent. It depends on the room.

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I also like oak and I have oak floors. Doing some simple cost planning it seems like MDF that I let someone cut for me will be much cheaper, even with two coats of paint and some mild sanding.

I sometimes use a biscuit cutter when working with MDF.

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Maybe there could be a MPBiscuitCutter?

As usual Dan thank you so much for your detailed response and insight.

I like the idea of the hard board I will have to do some testing with it for sure.
As for the 3/8 glass that is what the top is going to be itā€™s for my breakfast table area so I wanted to use lr3 to cut the groove in so it sits flush.

Also sorry for posting in here I didnā€™t mean to take over thread was just piggy back learning in the shadows and wanted to add what little insight I have in it so far.

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It is ok that you post in here as we both benefit from the knowledge of the members here, especially Dan.

Have you thought about materials for your table?

I have almost printed all the parts and tomorrow IĀ“ll have the parts and the pipes.

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Lots of topics in this forum like to wander, but I think we have a good culture of tolerance for it.

I used my Primo to cut my Ikea table, and the LR2 to cut the one I gave to a friend. My table was originally a version 1 ZenXY, and ended up being the beta for the V2 (it still doesnā€™t have the current version optical endstops.)

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Sounds exiting to be in a beta mode.

IĀ“ll check IKEA tomorrow for tempered glass, perhaps 120x47cm is too small. I donĀ“t know yet. I would like to cut some MDF to get a sense of the scale of the table.

What speeds are you doing in your table? Also, in another (older) thread you mention that you have software for patterns. Did you see that I revived that topic?

Ok so I did my dimensions I believe minus the radius for the tempered glass corners.
But just to visualize things it helped me to see.

X10 scale

A=table dimension
B=build foot print
C= y actual area
D= image dimensions

Maybe someone else could have a look and see if it makes sense.

Iā€™m not sure of the definition of some of your termsā€¦where you are actually measuring from, but when I do the math, your numbers donā€™t match up with what I get from the calculator, nor what I get when measuring the model Ryan provided.

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It says mm but maybe itĀ“s in cm? Or something else?

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Where would you place a lcd or tft screen? On the short side? Or the long side?

Yea sorry itā€™s supposed to be cm.
And the descriptions are from the ones on the site.

Itā€™s late and very possible I have my numbers messed up haha.

Things make more sense now. My initial problem is that you had the outer table labeled as 1370 x 1370, indicating a square table, and that did not fit with the other numbers.

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What would you say is a resonable budget for this build?

If you are asking me, I have no idea. If I was personally trying to generate a budget, Iā€™d build a spreadsheet and cost things out. Certain kinds of things can have a huge impactā€¦for example using tempered glass vs. plain glass for the top, or using MDF instead of oak. The type of tubing (conduit vs stainless) can also have a huge impact.