Question New V2 S600 in the Netherlands

Hello,

My name is Andries. I live in the Netherlands, near to Eindhoven.

I have been building and flying model aircraft for years. To aid this hobby , mainly the building part, I have bought a StepCraft V2 600.

About three weeks ago I obtained the kit and started assembly. With the adapter ring for the Proxxon spindle in back order all I could do until last weekend was use the machine to run grease down the spindles and runners.

Yesterday I had a chance to make the first cuts and see what the machine does to convert a drawing into an actual part.

First run went without a glitch. Second run however, further down the piece of balsa wood saw the machine loosing steps on the Y-axis around mid table at low speeds. Still some tinkering to do there to get that problem out.

Best regards,
Andries.

Hi Andreas,

The Y axis is very tricky to adjust correctly - in particular adjustment of the moveable rollers as recommended in the build manual will cause significant unnecessary friction. It took me several DAYS of fruitless adjustment before this dawned on me!!

I eventually slackened off all the adjustments on these four rollers and made sure that the end float on the two leadscrews was just reduced to zero. I also made sure that the leadscrew free end bearings were correctly lined up. I actually had to relieve the bearing seatings to avoid the leadscrews binding on the precision nuts when the gantry was at the end remote from the drives.

Once all this was done and there was no obvious tightness over the whole range of travel, then the moveable rollers were carefully tightened one at a time until the gantry could not be rocked back and forth (you might find it useful to temporarily slacken off the X-axis screws whilst doing this ). The extra 1/4 turn suggested in the build manual to give preload virtually locked the Y-axis solid!!!!

Kinematic design says that to allow one degree of freedom (Y movement) there need be only 5 restraining contacts ( X and Z translation and X Y and Z axis rotation ) - the gantry assembly potentially has 16, so there are a multitude of restraints doing nothing but induce friction if incorrectly adjusted.

One minor suggestion, don't overdo the greasing - it doesdn't help any and just makes a mess. I loaded some of my grease into a hypodermic syringe - its then easy to get the right amount of grease where its needed and its much quicker to clean down and regrease as and when necessary.