I have a woodworker and have been considering the Journeyman upgrade, but right now can’t justify the cost. It did get me thinking that it might be something easy to do on my own, for less cost, without having to ship around as many parts. Though I don’t know if anyone has looked in to it, I would guess the third rail isn’t really a requirement for the woodworker. The journeyman uses larger 50mm rails, but only two, so would three 35mm be sufficient for the larger span? If so, it should be possible to buy longer rails and ball screw, and reuse the existing woodworker mounts, bearings, etc. Anyone have any thoughts?
I am not sure what those parts would cost but based on the cost of other parts in the 1f store most of it seems reasonable or comparative to what you could buy else where. Based on the idea that the costs are competitive, I am not sure you would be able to source the materials cheap enough to actually save money vs just going through 1F.
Certainly possible. I haven’t priced it out yet.
Definitely agree. Also, you have the added benefit of proven and exceptional support for your purchase should you need it.
It would be easy to price out. Just do a search on-line for the parts needed. The ball screw would be most likely the hardest but I’m sure even that could be found. It could be a little difficult to assemble though as it looks like the 35mm tubes are press fitted and the ends and both sides would need to be aligned or you’ll have problems.
Considering 1F went from the original design of 2 rails to adding the 3rd stiffy rail (first as an add on and then with every purchase) on the 35mm design and now the 50mm rail upgrade, makes me think that z axis stability is the main focus or design weakness on the 1F. I think the concern might be flexing in the gantry due to the extended length of the tubes when trying to extend them to journeyman size. I wonder if 1F may have run into this issue during testing and that is the reason for the bigger rails on the journeyman and the upgraded woodworker to support larger spindles.
I ordered the 50mm for mine, and I think that the thread pitch for the 50 is different, so speeds are different, so the Post Processor is probably going to have to be different, and I suspect if you want to modify yours on your own…then you are subject to being truly on your own!
I imagine if you can get longer rails with the same thread pitch, you could stick with the same PP as current, and just indicate a longer X axis in the default settings, but I don’t know what else could be affected, such as homing, and other settings might be clunky.
That was my thought. So that means using 50mm tubes. The tubes sourced from McMaster would cost almost as much as the whole kit from 1F. That was before the bigger ballscrew and the higher torque motor. Seemed like a better idea to just go with the Journeyman from the start for me vs buying the WW and upgrading it to JM size myself later on.
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