Bought our system from you guys about three weeks ago with the water table and can not seem to get the table level. I have looked through a lot of forms on here and watched all your videos but still can not get my table 100% level. I have spent so many hours trying everything possible, I have loosened every bolt and tried re adjusting and still can not get it. I need to get this figured out as soon as possible, I feel I have waisted so much time already trying to get this table level and I need a solution. Thank you.
Which direction are you finding difficulty leveling? When you move the torch along X does it track the slat bed? What about the Y axis?
I am finding difficulty getting the machine tracking correctly when moving on the Y axis. I have been able to align the x axis following the videos on YouTube provided. The issue is when tracking the Y axis (with the torch holder in its most extended position) it will hit the slat on one corner and be to high on the other corner of the table. When I start adjust the caster on the “langmuir” tube side one of them will completely rise off the ground not allowing the table to flex enough. It seems like a battle between the two, I will get one corner level and it throws the other corner off. I have tired loosening the bolts in the langmuir system tube and it still does not leave enough flex in the table.
Can you measure the difference in torch height at the ends of Y travel?
What I ended up doing to get my Y axis flat after all else seemed to fail is shim under the low side of the slat bed keeper and this worked out good for me, I’m just using a shim under the centered of the slat keeper until I can make some more shims of varies sizes similar in shape to the torch height gauges
Daniel, I won’t be able to get to those measurements until Saturday due to work. I will get back with those measurements as soon as possible.
Chuck, thanks for the reply on your idea on fixing this issue… if all else fails I will try this.
To anyone who runs into this issue what I did to finally correct this issue is to just shim the actual slats sitting on the water table. I found cutting zip ties and slivers of metal into small pieces gave me good “objects” to raise the slat bed. I had leveled the table the best I could then found the highest point (the smallest gap between the torch and the slat) on the four corners of the table when tracking the torch. At the other 3 corners that is where I shimmed to get the proper clearance between the torch and slats.
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I am having the same problem, did my first runs cutting yesterday just small parts and it seemed ok . went back to shop today to play around with it and it was not ok. I had used a digital level on the table on the Y direction front and back and the shim method on the X front to back in center of table .
Tried to use the whole table today and found it was out of whack by a lot and could not adjust it that much with casters . Got out the digital level again and found the square tube that the X carriage rides on is not square it is about 1/2 degree different from one end to the other . Not sure what to do with it yet but the leveling slat bed may be the only option short of replacing the tube Thanks CNC1912.
I started trying to level my water table with the casters and kind of decided it’s a crappy design. Water table makes it too rigid to adjust with the casters. I just shimmed under the slat holder. Really easy to adjust and I don’t have to crawl around on my knees messing with those casters.
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I had the same problem, except my problem was on the X axis. On first assembly, I screwed all the casters all the way in so I could take that out of the equation for inital setup, and I made sure the ground and water table were level. But the gantry was clearly out of parallel. There’s a video in the assembly instructions that shows which bolts to adjust to fix X axis parallel, but that doesn’t help anyone who is having trouble with the Y axis. It didn’t help me either, even though it was made to fix X axis and I needed to fix my X axis. I followed the video instructions to the letter, and my -X was still about 1" higher than my +X. the gantry seemed too heavy for its own alignment, but I found a fix. The bolts they suggested to adjust are on the gantry itself, but I opted to adjust the bolts holding the gantry’s tube instead. They’re 1/4" bolts, but the holes are probably 5/16"… they have a bit of slop. There are four bolts through that tube. I loosened them and set the torch nose down on the farthest slat. The I lifted the end of the gantry as much as possible and tightened the torch mount to lock it in place. Then I re-tightened the tube bolts. Then, I released the torch and reset it to 1/16" above the slat. After that, it was parallel across all of X. I believe the same may work for the Y axis. You would just need to lift the +Y end of the tube and perhaps find a temporary shim to hold it up. Then press down on the -Y end of the tube and then tighten its bolts. I don’t know if it would work as well on Y, but it’s worth a shot.