Stingray has just released a solution to help owners of the Gen1 Elite machines protect their vulnerable Y-axis ball screws and guide rails.
This feature comes standard on Gen2 machines, but the Gen2 parts are not compatible with Gen1 machines. This product provides an upgrade path for Gen1 users to get similar benefits.
These panels snap on and off in seconds without tools. They are made from impact resistant polycarbonate that hugs the machine tight with minimal impedance into the workspace.
These guards are only compatible with Gen1 Elite Foreman machines. Similar guards for the smaller Woodworker and Journeyman machines is in the works!
Lots of effort went into ensuring these guards don’t reduce the work area of the machine nor interfere with homing. When the machine is homed the closest part of the Z-axis assembly (the black aluminum Z-plate) stops 1/8” away from the black plastic end plate of the guard.
The machine homes just fine with an 80mm spindle. The spindle raises high enough for most dust collectors to clear the guards. There may be some users configurations or Z-independent dust collectors (the kind that stays down all the time) that interfere with the guard.
Fortunately, the guards snap on and off very very easily. Popping the guard out of the way for homing is super easy.
Another option is to trim the guard. I’ve had a few people ask me about this, so this morning I went through the exercise of trimming a panel - even though most users won’t need to. I cut the polycarbonate guard with a circular saw and heavy duty scissors. The black plastic end plate was cut with a mitre saw. I drilled a hole and added a zip tie in place of the missing half of the clip.
