How to add longer T slots?

[TFMike]

Lookin to get a rostock max v2 kit, was wondering how big of a hassle it would be to swap out for 4,5 or even 6 foot T Slots as opposed to the standard ones? How hard would it be to pull this off and what adjustments would need to be made in the firmware and in the slicer program?

[Eric]

Sounds easy, so long as you upgraded all the associated parts as well. Length of every connection/tube/wire to the effector, extruder, and limit switches, and of course belts. Software likely wouldn't need any significant changes. There's bound to be some downside to scaling up, which you'll likely find out during calibration.

[Captain Starfish]

As mentioned: longer belts, longer cables. Firmware: nothing. Software/EEPROM: you have a bigger Z height to deal with.

Mechanically you are going to have a problem, though.

Imagine holding a wooden rule about an inch from the end. There's going to be no flex in it at all. Now have a 5 foot long piece of that same timber and it'll wobble all over the place. I exaggerate the example to make the principle obvious, but it will still be significant and all stiffness related errors will double or worse.

You might get away with it, you might not, but it's probably worth looking at heavier/stiffer channel if you're going to increase the height of the thing.

[TFMike]

As mentioned: longer belts, longer cables. Firmware: nothing. Software/EEPROM: you have a bigger Z height to deal with.

Mechanically you are going to have a problem, though.

Imagine holding a wooden rule about an inch from the end. There's going to be no flex in it at all. Now have a 5 foot long piece of that same timber and it'll wobble all over the place. I exaggerate the example to make the principle obvious, but it will still be significant and all stiffness related errors will double or worse.

You might get away with it, you might not, but it's probably worth looking at heavier/stiffer channel if you're going to increase the height of the thing.

wooden rule = ruler ?
I was wondering if the 1 inch T slots would be rugged enough for something like this, have heard about people doing it but have yet to see a tutorial/documentation for it. So if I bumped up the t slot size how big of a pain would it be to make it fit in the base and the top, among other things?

[JohnStack]

You've seen this?

http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... =man+sized

[TFMike]

You've seen this?

http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... =man+sized

Yeah, it's very exciting but way beyond anything I can hope to do. He isn't plugging rostock guts into that as far as I know.

[Captain Starfish]

wooden rule = ruler ?

No. "wooden rule" = a thing you measure length with, against which you can drag a pencil to draw a straight line.
"ruler" = Obama etc

I was wondering if the 1 inch T slots would be rugged enough for something like this, have heard about people doing it but have yet to see a tutorial/documentation for it. So if I bumped up the t slot size how big of a pain would it be to make it fit in the base and the top, among other things?

Build it and see. The 1 inch extrusion is pretty cheap AFAIK, buy the lengths you need plus some extra cable and belts and put it together. Won't cost that much and if it all goes to crap you can switch back to the standard length, replace the belts and coil the excess cable up behind the power supply.

[Tinyhead]

wooden rule = ruler ?

No. "wooden rule" = a thing you measure length with, against which you can drag a pencil to draw a straight line.
"ruler" = Obama etc

I was wondering if the 1 inch T slots would be rugged enough for something like this, have heard about people doing it but have yet to see a tutorial/documentation for it. So if I bumped up the t slot size how big of a pain would it be to make it fit in the base and the top, among other things?

Build it and see. The 1 inch extrusion is pretty cheap AFAIK, buy the lengths you need plus some extra cable and belts and put it together. Won't cost that much and if it all goes to crap you can switch back to the standard length, replace the belts and coil the excess cable up behind the power supply.

Ruler has both meanings. Putting 'wooden' before it just makes a ruler made of wood.

The longer you have the extrusion, the flimsier it's going to get. You'd have to figure out how long you could make them before they start to bow too much. Keep in mind you're looking at millimetres or fractions of thereof. It doesn't take much.

Edit: If you COULD pull it off, there would be (as far as I know) literally no adjustment to the firmware. I think you would just need to set your Z height when calibrating... which would be much larger.

[Captain Starfish]

Ruler has both meanings.

Thanks Tinyhead for prompting me to go look it up. It would seem that I'm now old enough for English to have changed a few things since I learneded it. Back at primary school I remember being beaten by the nun (with a wooden rule, coincidence?) for asking to borrow a ruler. Yes, Blues Brothers style. One thing to be said for that lesson: I remembered!

It would seem that even the Oxford dictionary has relaxed its grip on something and allowed the dual definition.

So I learned something today.

Agreed with towers - apart from the physical lengthening of belts and cables and dealing with the flex, the only thing you need to change is the max Z height.

[Eric]

Just for fun, I looked up "ruler" in the 1828 edition of Websters. It has both definitions, so it's not new to America, which most of the readers of this forum are in.

But I hear you on how things differ, both between cultures and because of time.
When I was learning to type, it was always two spaces after a period. That rule is gone now, although it took me many years to stop doing it automatically.
Ditto for using commas in a list of things; I originally learned there should be a comma before the "and".
When I went to a German school in Finland (I was 6 at the time), I learned to put slashes through my 7's and a few other conventions that teachers marked as errors when we returned to the USA the next year.

[TFMike]

I was lookin at using something like this, but I would have to modify the laser cut base and top, and possibly use different bearings?

[Tinyhead]

When I was learning to type, it was always two spaces after a period. That rule is gone now, although it took me many years to stop doing it automatically.

When did the two spaces rule stop?!

9hucg.jpg (30.77 KiB) Viewed 8928 times

[Eric]

When I was learning to type, it was always two spaces after a period. That rule is gone now, although it took me many years to stop doing it automatically.

When did the two spaces rule stop?!

9hucg.jpg

Publishers started abandoning it in the 1960's. Among the general populace, it died slowly over the years as word processing on personal computers advanced from mono-spaced fonts to kerned typefaces, while also displacing typewriters. Plus, formal education on typing is mostly a thing of the past. Computers today are far more accessible to all than typewriters ever were.

[geneb]

The two-spaces-after-a-period thing was still being taught in 1982 when I took typing.

If you really want to piss off a teenage girl, out-type her.

g.

[guanu]

The two-spaces-after-a-period thing was still being taught in 1982 when I took typing.

If you really want to piss off a teenage girl, out-type her.

g.

just dont try to out type them on a smart phone lol....

Guanu