If you wanted I could probably print the mounts for you, I would just like to be reimbursed for shipping cost and plastic. Assuming @TMToronto doesn’t have any objections.
For marking the center of the holes, after squaring it up as much as you can by measuring, I used the biggest brad point bit that would fit in the four holes at each feat, taped it lightly with mallet to create a starting point. Than used a long bit slightly smaller than the threads of of my pocket hole screw to start the hole. You only need to go down a 1/8 to 1/4". This will give you some play if you need to adjust your feet.
Also I don’t remember who recommended it but securing it down with pocket hole type screws (the wider head version) and 10-32 washer is much easier and will give you play if you need to adjust. (Pretty sure it was 10-32 )
If you would like, I could try to write out the procedure I used to square up my frames.
@TheyCallMeJohn thanks for the help, a procedure is exactly what I’m looking for. I really don’t want to go from ground up a third time!
The brad point is in line with my thinking (a center punch is too thin or likely to jam in the mount hole).
I’m certainly not afraid of buying more measuring tools, though I still have dreams of making some measuring devices using the CNC if I can get it accurate enough.
Other than following the setup video I’m not entirely sure of the sequence of events to get it all lined up. I’m willing to photo-document the process if you can lay it out textually. A how to guide for future users. Would take you up on the template if that is the way to make it work.
I’ve been following this thread as I want the machine as square as possible. I want to do inlays eventually and I think square will be pretty important. 3 things I found going through every squaring procedure I could find …
my left and right Y rails do not travel the same distance. When I adjusted the setting for travel / rev you can only set for 1 motor - the slave is not settable. I set the left one as accurately as possible and will have to live with issues on the right side
I found that when you home the machine it does not always home in the same place. I hit the home button for each individual axis several times until there is some consistency in the position measurements.
I found that there is a little wiggle room at the connection between X and Y rails. I loosened the bolts and pushed one side back and the other forward for that final little adjustment.
I found one of my self centering bits for hinges fit in the foot perfectly and allowed me to drill a 1/8" pilot hole with it. FWIW I put threaded inserts in the table under my feet and used 1/4x20 screws to secure them.
I actually just finished realigning my 1F (after an unfortunate crash caused by not having the bit collet tight enough) and rechecked all the alignments. Yup, mine was no where near x/y square and it took me a good hour to tune it in to within a couple thousandths again. Whew!
In the next table iteration I intend to devise a means to micro adjust the squareness as well as fine tune the vertical axis’ as well. I’m not sure how that will look yet so…film at 11.
If successful I’ll post here about it, of course.
Update on my parallelogram situation. Did the following:
Took everything apart
Added another board on top of my existing table to achieve a surface as flat as possible
For me this was with 1 mm in each direction using a flat edge; side to side, front to back, and diagonals.
I used used jack hand plane to flatten the board underneath, then glued a 5/8" melamine 4’x4’ piece on top with construction adhesive.
Followed the Onefinity assembly video with these additions:
Used a center punch (wrapped it in a few layers of hockey tape to get it just the right size for the mount hole) to mark each hole. This worked surprisingly well at getting dead center.
Pre-drilled each mounting hole using a 8" long 1/8" drill bit per forum.
Used #9x2" GRK screws (GRK Fasteners | R4 Multi-Purpose Screw) with #10 washers to mount. These allowed for a bit of play for adjustment, but easy to use and stable.
Compulsively checked the diagonal distances and for square against the known straight bottom each of the mounting board. Moved the gantry back and forth several times while checking.
Mounted front corners as per video with gantry in front, then all back mounts with gantry at the back (4 on each), then the rest of the front mounts.
Check distances and square again (then once more).
Like @woodsnipper said check your squares for squares. I was confused the other day when after I squared up my machine it seemed more out of square. Turns out the large framing square was noticeable out of square.
If you are using a framing square I would check out this video.
Also if your machine is just a little out of square and you are using the coupler nut method to protect your bearings, adding a washer (or two ) can help bring it in. You can do less with a few layers of soda can. It is pain for me to unbolt everything because I essentially have to remove all the cable rails just to do a minor adjustment.
Lastly if you end up having trust issues with your square like I did. You can use this method to bring it into square. Note this only works with the coupler nuts at the rails.
Get it as square as possible with the above methods.
Set 0,0 to the center of your machine.
Have your machine engrave a large rectangle with a V-bit about .30 mm deep.
Mark the corners. (I found putting a push pin half way in at he back and sewing pin at the front helpful.
Measure the distance between cross pins. The delta is approximately is how much one side needs to be shimmed out. I.e. if 3328 and 3330 mm. I would add two .
Rehome y and set your zero to the precision offset
shift your zero by 5 mm or so in the X or y.
Repeat steps 3 thru 6 until you are happy with the result.
What a great system. One thing I am curious about. I noticed on mine a small bit of ‘play’ possible because of the two pairs of set screws that hold the Y tubes in the blocks - not much however. So theoretically if you loosened them all and pushed one set of Y blocks together, and pulled the other set apart, then retightened, I am guessing there may be a few mm difference in length. That could impact the squaring, but a small amount at best. I would be curious how close they are. Would you be willing to use your measuring system to see if there is variation in distance between your Y axis blocks (those connected to the same two tubes). I checked mine and they were the same (but I only have a standard tape measure, so by eye they looked to be the same distance apart).
I would be glad to. I am going out there today. I’ll post the results later.
EDIT: I checked. There was 7 thou distance (.007) difference between the Y blocks on my Woodworker.
I am glad it isn’t off by too much. I have everything built!!! I am also glad I didn’t think of this before I started building because I would have driven myself insane trying to remedy those 7 thousanths!
you understood well that you can do this with the geometrical method that I mentioned in a posting above, but unlike I suggested here earlier (with the little raspis), later I came to the conclusion not to use the base of the Onefinity’s feet as measuring points to measure the diagonals but rather the points where the rails go into the Y anodized aluminium blocks. The rails are adjustable within their pockets in the aluminum blocks in order to adjust the tilt between upper and lower rail, and therefore they are not always in a predetermined position relative to the corners of the feet. And it’s the rails where the gantries run, not the feet – so better measure on the rails.
Using Starrett things is always a joy, but you can also use the simpler Bar Gauge Heads that I recommend with wooden sticks with sharpened edge, like in the images shown in this item description at Lee Valley website:
Also as Tom mentioned here, the distance between the two blocks on one side can be different on left and right side. And the equal-diagonals method only works in a rectangle, not in a trapezoid, so first measurement should be whether y=y’! The good thing is, this can also be done with the same Bar Gauge method!
One thing to be aware of if your Y rails are different length, and you’re measuring/setting squareness from corner to corner. If done perfectly, you may have the condition shown (exaggerated) below. When you home your machine, it will be off 1/2 of the difference between the actual Y axis lengths. @Ziggy, your .007" would be inconsequential for the most part, this is just theory to keep in mind.
Can anyone comment on this issue when using the QCW frames? Hoping I nipped it in the bud by purchasing one … still waiting on my machine so no hardware to play with yet.
Agreed, stack-ups can be different between the two Y rails. Referencing only one would be advantageous to preventing trapezoid in addition to the parallelism issue.
Would you think it wise to first make sure the X rail does not have ‘twist’ too as it could exacerbate the situation as well?
Yes, absolutely. Very good point Phil. Otherwise, you couldn’t be sure if your indicator was reacting to a twist in the X axis or an out-of-square condition.
I used my L.H. Y rail as the primary fixed reference, then set the R.H. rail afterwards.
i did inside corner to inside corner. had my GF hold the tape on the 10 inch mark on the inside and we corner squared. i was out 1/8 of an inch on initial setup.
)
)
) can help bring it in. You can do less with a few layers of soda can. It is pain for me to unbolt everything because I essentially have to remove all the cable rails just to do a minor adjustment.
