I am upgrading my Z16 Slider with a 65 mm Makita to a Z20 with an 80 mm Redline Spindle. How much farther does the bit extend in the Y direction? I’m thinking I will need to move the spoilboard before it arrives.
I don’t know the answer to your question but I would like to point out a problem I had with the Z20 installation that might help when you install it.
The Z20 has multiple holes to allow mounting it at different heights. But all mounting positions except one caused a crash on my Woodworker Pro X50. Everything is great with the Z20 mounted in its highest position. All other positions are a no-go.
In this pic, the Z20 is bolted to the X carriage in its highest position. It has about 1/8 inch clearance between the Z20 and the linear bearing when X is in the HOME position so it works fine.
But with the Z20 in one of the lower positions, the crash between it and the linear bearing was interpreted as HOME by the controller.
This led to a mismatch. The BB controller knows the X travel on my WOODWORKER is 32.125 inches but the actual X travel (because of the crash) was only 31.8 inches. This led to weird results when I surfaced my spoil board!
Mike
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Hey Mike,
this is a known Onefinity Z Axis Design Issue.
For the time that I intend to use the Onefinity CNC machine, I’m thinking of making a different z axis. @TMToronto already did that with success.
Regarding the limits, you can adjust them in the corresponding MOTOR section of the controller. You may also think of retrofitting inductive limit sensors to get rid of unreliable stall homing.
To avoid carriages bumping against the linear bearings when using stall homing, you may also think of Bill @Machinist 's solution:
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Thanks for the cautionary advice folks. I wonder when the Z20 slider comes whether there will be a design change by now.
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Nope. Highest position or add a stop extender and update your travels.
I worked with Onefinity support on this exact issue when I upgraded my machine to the Z-20 slider last year. After a few go-arounds, both Onefinity and I got measurements that match the theoretical shift within a couple thousandths.
Theroretical shifts:
- Spindle centerline offset: Compared to the 65 mm spindle mount, a Z-16 with 80 mm mount moves the spindle centerline forward by ~15 mm, per this forum post.
- Z-slider baseplate thickness: The Z-20 baseplate is 1/4" thicker than the Z-16 baseplate. This shifts the bit forward by an additional 1/4".
So the total theoretical spindle-centerline shift is ~15 mm / 25.4 + 0.25" = 0.841".
Here are Onefinity Support’s final measurements:
- The Z16 slider measures 2.767" from the back of the slider mounting plate to the centerline of the 65 mm spindle mount.
- The Z20 slider measures 3.615” from the back of the slider mounting plate to the centerline of the 80mm mount.
So the total measured spindle centerline offset, per Onefinity Support, is 3.615" - 2.767" = 0.848".
I confirmed those numbers during my own Z-slider upgrade.
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Thanks for such a detailed response. I appreciate this.
When I first set up my “original” Journeyman, I noticed that the X-axis “hard stop” for stall homing was actually the Z-16 slider baseplate hitting the 50 mm way-tube mounting block. I was worried about an impact knocking the spindle out of tram, so I did someting similar to Bill’s solution, albeit more expensive. I simply installed a 50 mm shaft collar on one of the way tubes, to serve as a hard stop for the X-axis carriage. These collars from McMaster were a perfect fit.
I can’t find any photos, unfortunately, and I removed the collar when I installed the Elite upgrade. But IIRC, positioning the collar in contact with the X-tube mounting block placed the hard stop at an ideal position.
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