do you happen to have files for the mounting plate or in general of the zplus / shapeoko 4 perhaps? thanks and all the best from germany!

Carbide Motion. Not the fanciest program, but it doesn't need to be. All I need my Gcode sender to do is set a zero and run the program. Fusion360 is really where all the magic happens.

Just a fan of the channel. I'm not planning on sending anything to space... Yet.

Yeah. Every now and then you find someone parting out their machine, or has some spare parts from an upgrade. The platform is old/mature enough that I personally think it wouldn't hurt to make them available, but alas it's not my call.

No worries. I kind of expected the polarization. And this machine is supposed to be a fun experiment for me. After all, I machined parts of it on a Shapeoko HDM and a Datron Neo, if the Frankenoko isn't the best little cnc router in the world I probably won't be short on alternative ways to machine something...

Yup. Made an older video about it here : kzbin.info/www/bejne/qomxlYJpeKumkK8si=9MeexAn0ehwidlSy

That's what I was thinking too. If the wheels are soft enough then maybe they will all engage, but otherwise two will just be going along for the ride.

May I suggest reviewing the last 10 seconds of the video...

No worries I got there. I am sitting at 2 CNC mills, one being a Millright MegaV and the other a Langmuir MR1. MegaV showed me that things like a rack/pinion or belt setup are great for fast travel speeds but the router spindles allong with tesselation can be a bit of an issue. Ball screws and linear rails along with a legitimate spindle really helps with being able to remove material.

In general, weight is good. But the rigidity of a machine needs to be balanced with the sturdiness of the powertrain. V-wheels and belts are at best, "medium duty". Making the frame out of aluminum, or steel, or cast iron will make very little difference in the grand scheme of things here.

So speeds and feeds is a potentially deep rabbit hole. I think it's always a good idea to have a good high-level understand of the theory, and what the terms actually mean. There's some good videos about it (NYC CNC and the like), and lots of websites do a decent job explaining it. It really depends on how you learn best (visual, written, etc). From that baseline knowledge, I think you need to make a judgement call. You can totally nerd out with programs like gWizard, or spreadsheets, and deep-diving machinist forums to try and find the "optimal" feeds and speeds. But unless you're using an industrial machine, the theory can fall apart pretty quick. There's always exceptions and ultimately you need empirical testing to figure out what works best for your setup. I personally don't like going overboard, nerding out on these things. What I do recommend is to use Speeds and Feeds knowledge as a guideline. Ex. If you're cutting an unfamiliar material, but you know there's a suggested range of surface speeds, you can work backwards to find a ballpark RPM to try first. You don't necessarily need to get every last cutting parameter perfect though. And remember, these are guidelines, not immutable laws of machining. Keep a couple cheap endmills on hand, and don't let the fear of getting something wrong paralyze you.

It's definitely possible if you throw two wheels on something like a rocker arm. The problem is that every linkage you add is a potential point of deflection. My feeling was that the simplicity of an eccentric nut + V-wheel on a solid plate would be the safest course of action.

Unfortunately on this architecture there's not a good way. I ended up using shims between the gantry extrusion and its endplates to square it up. There's also provisions for dual Y-axis homing for auto-squaring if I end up using a Shapeoko 5 controller to power this thing.

Yeah same......so sad to you use rollers instead of proper rails......kinda aims besides the target if you spend all that time and money on a CNC why not spend 300$ more and get something decent? Also the 300 bucks will be spent on broken endmills real fast

@@Basement_CNC He described the reasoning behind his choice in the video. If you think it's such a bad choice, go make your own. I've got a Shapeoko with rollers and it works great

@@BPSspace Excellent product placement!

bepis man bepis man

hit the nail on the head , extra wheels waste of time

I did not because my goal here was mainly to explore improvements to an existing architecture with a simple change. At work I can play with a 4x4 linear rail + ballscrew Shapeoko 5 so I don't really crave the need for outright power or performance. Oh, and I also have the Neo to play with... And as kind of a thought exercise, I wanted to see what an affordable Shapeoko could be. If you assume the linear rails for X and Y could be had for $150, plus labor and machining time, by the time you add retail markup you're going to have a Shapeoko that's ~$500 more expensive. That's basically the price delta you see between Shapeoko 4 and Pro. To me it would be less fun to try and build something that's essentially already been explored.

@@WinstonMakes for a production model sure, but this is more of a one off thing. dont get me wrong, your work is awesome and have watched every video lol. just figured if building something from scratch why not.

I think you missed one of my previous videos. I know I technically weakened the rail, but it's fun and looks cool. Plus, the material removal from the gantry is negligible in the grand scheme of things. The belts and wheels are ultimately the weakest point. It's like saying a pencil should be made out of titanium for precise writing, when ultimately as long as the body is stronger than graphite it will work.

@WinstonMakes ignoring the science is not wise. But if your goal is the cool look, that is no point. All the best👋

Who says it is not also a 3d printer?!?! Plus with the limitations that will be inherent to the sort of spindle that thing can mount and the wheels it runs on I doubt its had much if any impact on performance while reducing the mass that the machine has to move around a tiny bit, so saving a bit of energy if the machine was going to be used often would make up for the time invested. (Not 100% it won't matter, but it looks like a pretty safe bet it won't have made a meaningful difference with all the other factors that look much more limiting. Also even if it has he gains a great excuse to reinforce it in a lightweight and stylish way) Also plenty of commercial machines do have lightening features in places - not every machine of every scale will, and the method used to have both sufficient rigidity and lightness might not look the same as here - for instance T, C and I beam profiles are a stiffness in multiple directions to weight ratio saving measure, and they get everywhere! Ultimately no machine wants to pack excessive weight where it isn't actually required, that just makes it more expensive to run and likely limits the speed of its operation. So like all engineering its a compromise between cost to build, cost to run, and final performance.

@@foldionepapyrus3441 okay, its like you buy a VW Beetle and you say this my solution for F1 racing, family camping, and your distance for your dayjob. This car fits only for one of this 3 cases, .....the last, and if you ever had done so, you never want this solution back for only one day. Its a compromise, and for shure a very bad! If i have the choice, i always look for the best possible way. You can do 3 d printing with a much more massive machine, ......but slower. You can mill with a machine out of rubber nothing, the flexible parts cause the damage of the endmills. Carbide mills are made for stiff machines and can not handle the flexing, cutting edges break ....or the complete mill. Okay you can instead produce dust with smalest possible chips, but this is not milling! This stupid cutouts are not useful, an you can discuss as long as you want, at the end of the day its the truth.🤷‍♂️ 40 Years of machining .....👋

@@schwellenzaehler4564 In this case it was always a VW, and thus only suited for a slower pace. Now its just wearing a body kit so it can pretend to be a more impressive car while making no meaningful if any change at all to its performance. Seriously its lots of effort to make it look pretty, might help the machine have faster rapids, but its not going to make a huge difference if any difference at all to how that machine can perform - its only going to be able to mount a baby spindle that can't handle cutting loads significant enough anyway, the wheels themselves are on tiny little axles etc - there are so many factors that limit the performance of this machine to well below what you'd expect that beam to be able to handle!

Ah, someone who appreciates fast and effective transportation. 👋🏼