Low & Slow. This is gonna be a while

So, my very first LowRider2 part. I was going to do it in plain 1/4" MDF, but I had a piece of this with the melamine of adequate size and decided to use it instead. I will be applying sealer to the edges to protect it… or spray paint maybe.

This is the variation I found for the Makita RT0701C. (Thingiverse 3257573) because that’s what I intend to use in it.

I’m not going to hurry this build, or at least I don’t intend to for now.

Aside from the mods for the Makita, I’ll try a nice standard build and see how that goes. My other thread about doing a rail (Or not) might get called into play, depending on how building the table goes.

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I made my Makita plate out of aluminum I had laying around. My build started in December I think… almost have the basic table welded and top wood routed and applied. Next… assemble the machine LOL
Very slow build!

I was going to make a new case lid for my second-hand SKR Pro 1.2, and ran out of grey filament right at the end…

Not sure what that funky wavering is, that’s new to my printer.

I think that a milled enclosure is going to be the answer. Printing takes too long for flat stuff like this, and a tabbed box is so easy to do with the Primo. Or it will be when I clean the chips out of the gantry bearings.

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Building the tools to build the tools…

A sled to hold circular saw. There is a 1/8" depression to hold the shoe.

A quick test fit of the saw. I don’t have the #8 machine screws which the shoe has threads for, so just a test fit.


And I happened to have these which I think I can use to hold the sled to a couple of 1" steel tubes, so that I can use the circular saw as a panel saw.

I seem to have misplaced my leftover 608 skate bearings, but I’m sure I’ll find them before this is ready.

Basically, I need a panel saw in order to handle some of the LR2 table design I have. My table saw can’t manage the sizes I want, and while a straight edge and clamps will probably work for one cut, I want repeatability for several pieces… I thought about a table extension for the table saw, but this works, too. I’ll save the table extension for when I get a router lift.

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If you haven’t printed all of the parts yet, I’d suggest., These Y axis end stops, for adjustable belt tension.

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I had issues cutting some of the larger pieces square too. It is funny because I have a basic idea of the size of pieces I can comfortably handle in my workflow and to make the LR have the same capacity, I need to be able to cut larger pieces.

I used a door board and my circular saw for most of it. But I dropped it on the concrete once, cursed a bunch. But I managed to get it back to tracking square after some futzing.

Allison made a saw like this. She made basically a box, and put it on saw horses. The post is still up, but the pictures have gone private, it looks like.

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2 ends for the slide. One is being clamped for gluing, the other shows component layers.

So these are cut in 3 pieces of 1/2" plywood. The first has a 1" hole pocket cut 1/4" deep, the innermost has a hole removing material from the center. I put some “scrap” 1" tube in (Actually the rails from my first ZenXY build) to keep the layers straight while the glue sets up. They’ll be 1 1/2" thick with the tube fitting in 1 1/4" into each side. The bearing holders are the weak point so this really is overkill, but helps enforce squareness as well as providing strength.

I’m short a few 608 skate bearings, they’ll be here tomorrow, I think. Or Tuesday. One package arrives tomorrow, one Tuesday, can’t remember which is which. The skillsaw sled is almost exactly 12" long, and a little under 18" wide. I’m going to make the rails 72" which is more than enough to deal with ripping up to full width sheets. I don’t have the height in either the garage or the basement to do a 9’ slide. I’d have to put an untenable slope on the slide, and wouldn’t be able to reach the top anyway.

I need to figure out a clamping solution to hold the sheets down so the saw doesn’t try to lift the work.

I will ask at work about some 2X2X0.125" tube and maybe build the frame for the panel saw from that, with some 2x4 bolted to it. That will also serve as welding practice for the LR2 table.

At this point, it’s looking like making the table from steel will be cheaper than lumber. Ridiculous, and I know it’s much worse in the USA. Still needs a wood skin for the surface I suppose.

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Oh, I was wrong. I checked the tracking, and it said delivered. So for now, uselessly short rails u til the glue is all set up, but it lets me check a few things.

Cut depth maximum is about 1 3/4", if I place the base the maximum distance from the sled. This gives enough to cut 2X whatever, so it’s good enough for now. I won’t have to unload the saw every time I want to crop some lumber, and this might even come in handy.

Checking that the saw can still tilt to 45 degrees. The sled interferes with the blade guard at this angle, and it’s super close to the bearing holders. I’ll need to shim the bed for the sheet goods, as I’ll lose about 30% of my cutting depth, so this is about 1 1/4" cutting depth max.

Well, I hardly ever use the angled cut on that saw, if it’s a problem I’ll figure something out.

Edit: is it a bad thing that I’m thinking I could add a LR2 X drive to this and make a CNC Panel saw? (Not that this would be actually useful, but cool, right?)

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Today’s LR progress was to re-flash my SKR Pro board with the LR2 dual endstop firmware. I just did it with the .bin file rather than compiling from source, and realized that I’m going to miss some of the stuff in the Marlin mode custom menu which I’d re-done for the Primo… But then, I also don’t know the touch screen interface very well, so hopefully, I never end up actually using the 12864 emulator mode. Not that there was anything WRONG with that mode, but it was a little cumbersome.

Anyway, I have to decide if I’m going to finish cutting the LR2 flat parts tonight or setting up a jig for the panel saw box.

I had a crazy (?) idea about putting the top and bottom of the panel saw on skate bearings so that it would move, rather than re-position the sheet material in the bed/box, but I think that might introduce problems with keeping the cut line square. I think that I’d need to have some sort of reinforcement to ensure that the gantry couldn’t twist at all, or would need to move in lockstep. I could probably do something with belts, or cable, similar to the way that old-school drafting desks used to work to keep the line guide level relative to the desk with pulleys at all 4 corners… More likely the answer is to just make the box big enough to handle anything that I’m cutting a full sized sheet wider than I can cut with the table saw, ie: never have to support more than 6’ of the sheet, to cut off at least 2’

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Still waiting on stuff…

I was poking around with my SKR Pro, and noticed something. I re-flashed it with the LR2 dual endstop firmware, and now on the touchscreen, Marlin mode 12864 emulator doesn’t work. I was probably going to recompile it myself to muck around with stuff like the machine name and default bed size etc. Is the 12864 not enabled in the DualLR firmware?

I’d rather use the touchscreen instead anyway, but I like stuff to work…

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Hmmm. It should be.

No my mistake. It does work, provided that you do not use the reset button.

Once I hit the reset button, it doesn’t matter if it’s on the board or the LCD, the “No printer attached” message doesn’t go away, and then nothing from the LCD works. Removing power from the board, it reboots, and then everything works as expected. Marlin mode works, touch screen works, and I can get responses from the console.

Maybe it doesn’t like not being attached to anything?

Just got a bit of a windfall, Transferred over the accounting system to a new machine for a client, and got some bonus bucks in the bank. They didn’t sit there long before winging their way down to the V1 shop in exchange for an LR2 hardware kit.

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office space updating accounting software scam

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We pause this build PLOG for a small rant.

I am so effing tired of getting robbed. Just had $300 worth of hard drives stolen by a porch pirate. Delivery came, and the guy didn’t ring the doorbell, didn’t even knock. Just put the boxes down and walked away. I was sitting in the living room. About an hour later, some waste of oxygen comes waltzing up my front walk, and leaves with them.

WTF?! If I order a $14 Arduino, I get a phone call from the delivery 5 minutes before they come, another when they’re on the front walk and hear the doorbell as I’m going to the door. $300 worth of drives… nothing.

I do have a front door camera though, so I have a picture of the scumbag. Betting he lives in the neighborhood. He wasn’t even wearing a mask, so the picture has his face.

Talked to them at Amazon, because most retailers for things like hard drives track serial numbers for warranty and exchange. Apparently Amazon does not. :frowning:

Going to be extra paranoid, since I’ve got $400 worth of V1 hardware coming, and if he takes that, I’m going door to door with his picture and a sword.

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If the robbers were smart, they would have stolen the package with the doorbell camera.

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If the robbers were smart they’d do something else.

Well, it’s probably same guy who took my previous 2 dashcams. (Daily driver is a Ford, and sometimes the passenger front door doesn’t lock. Always good for a laugh.)

Doorbell cam is actually an ESP32 camera module, worth about $12. Amazon delivery phoned when they were 5 minutes away, and again when they arrived, rang the doorbell… But for the hard drives? Nope. SMH consistency would be nice.

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Motherfather, I hate petty thieves. I almost have no problem with a guy that has the balls to run off with a truck load of merchandise from a Walmart distribution center… but porch pirates? Lowest of the low.

In case you haven’t seen this one guy’s porch pirate solution…

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Yeah, I gave some consideration to the glitter bomb idea. Meantime, if I see this guy around…