I’ve noticed that on the short axis of my machine (which I call Y), there’s a significant deviation. Fiddled with belt tension and carriage stiffness, and bearings. Wondering if adding a second stepper and belt to the other side of the tool carriage might help to even out belt tension in both directions and make that axis more accurate. Ironically, the long (X) axis on my machine is way more accurate than the Y. It’s easy to believe that a single belt and stepper on the short axis is sufficient, but that axis is still pretty long from a mechanical point of view. Has anyone tried this?
Are the wheels tracking straight?
They weren’t, so I addressed that. Factoring that out, I still notice that there seems to be a significant, repeatable deviation in one direction. The tool chatters quite a bit as well. Still assuming that it’s some defect in my build and calibration, or the tool or bit. I’ve put a lot of miles on the machine and abused it quite a lotand find that there’s significant overhead keeping it kosher. So this thought is about making an improvement that might make it more robust.
Also having unnatural, wicked thoughts about operating the machine vertically, like the bastard child of LR, Maslow and a panel saw. Easier to load material, takes less floor space, gravity is your frenemy.
Good luck with that. Gravity holds the thing to the table. Also, you’ll need some kind of counterweight, that doesn’t swing around, to help hold the router up.