Unable to level gantry, adjustment maxed out

Been assembling my new table. I have the water table installed, slat holders installed over the screws, slats are fully seated in the holders. When I try and level the gantry per the video im unable to lift the free end of the gantry high enough, basically the adjustment is maxed out. All the bolts for leveling the gantry are loose. I’m able to get it close to level, but I am coming up about 1/8" off still when I compare the height at both ends of travel. Out of the box the free end of the gantry was off by a good 3/4 - 1".

Any ideas?

Thanks

i followed this video to help me out.

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Thanks for the link to the video. Informative, but doesn’t address what I have run into. In my case I have adjusted the unattached end of the gantry up as high as I can maxing out the adjustment and I still need to raise it up just a little bit more. I could possibly overdrill the holes for the mounting bolts to get a little more adjustment, but want to make sure I’m not missing something and get a official response before modifying the machine.

Barring anything else being wrong, would you be able to “shim” the slat bed inside the water pan? I wouldn’t alter any mounting/alignment holes…

mine was off also about 1/8" off on the far end of X do to the weight of the torch holder even after watching the video and scribing the tick marks on the torch holder. What i did to remedy that was slide the torch holder assemble all the was to the far end, loosen the bearing screws, raise and hold the X tube above my last tick mark about 1/8" then tighten the screws down. once you let go of the tube, it will settle at about 1/8" below, which should sit right at level.

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Im sure I could shim the slat bed and get where I need. Just not what I would expect to have to do with a brand new machine. Thanks for the idea though.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am unable to raise the X tube any higher as I have reached the limit of adjustability. You can only twist the X tube so high before you are pinching the bolts in the bolt holes where the Gantry tube meets up with the Gantry slide. For some reason on my machine I have reached that physical limit before getting the far end of the X tube high enough to be flat with the slat bed.

Have you leveled the table using the caster adjustment nuts?

I didn’t think that would matter at this point, but I will chase that down and make sure it’s taken care of. Thanks.

OK… For anyone who runs into this:

I took a another close look at the machine and was able to locate the issue and get it fixed. During assembly of the machine I installed the Y axis tube upside down the first time. I noticed this right away and fixed it. However when doing so this led to the Y axis tube rotating toward the front of the machine ever so slightly under the weight of the gantry. Not much of a twist on the Y axis tube, but when you extended it out to 2 feet it was enough to cause the issue I was having. To fix I simply loosened the 4 bolts holding the Y axis tub in place and lifted up on the end of the gantry and tightened those 4 bolts on the Y axis tube. This got me back into spec apparently and I was then able to level the gantry per the video. Thanks for everyones input and hopefully this helps the next person.

Mark.

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Its great you got it figured out.

My gantry adjustment is maxed out and the gantry is still off by a 1/4 inch from x plus to x minus. I haven’t checked the bearing yet, but I can clearly see the x plus end of the drop as soon a loosen the torch slide, and that should happen if the bearing a tight on the y tube. The drop implies that the gantry falls until the bearing take the load…sorry thinking out load.

I just got my gantry leveled…1st I found that the adjustable bearing block were at best finger tight, 2nd I found that the were to loose, sagging. The bearing block being loose maybe shipping, or what ever, the upper and lower y axis tubes is “poor description” on Langmuir video, “do NOT over tighten”. So I found a old CrossFire Assembly Manual on the internet, that prescribes tightening the 3/8 inch upper and lower y axis bolts to 40 ft/lbs, and they used “spacers” inside both the upper and lower y axis tubes. I machined spacers, installed them, I only tightened 25 ft/lbs and no long have any “sag” between the upper and lower y axis tubes. I then proceeded to tighten and reload the y axis bearings. At this point adjusting the gantry to parallel with the slats became simple, and was done as the Langmuir directed.

Langmuir has numerous machines in use that seem to be working just fine without spacers in the y axis tubes, or with out specifying a torque for the upper and lower y axis station bolts, But for me I would just as soon not have to worry about this, or keep looking at the gantry trying to see if it is sagging.

I also had trouble getting the gantry level with the slats. I tried the method in the video MANY times. I finally used the block and screw shown in the attached image. At the near side I set the torch holder to 1/8" with the provided shim. I then used the screw to support the far end. Eventually I had to lift the gantry 1/4" to get it level after it sagged when the support was removed.

You shouldn’t ‘force’ the rail upward. When properly assembled and adjusted the rail is parallel to the slats. Read some of the posts in this ancient thread for tips to adjust it.

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I didn’t FORCE the rail up. I had the 8 bolts loose, lifted up the end of the rail, and tightened the bolts. When I removed the support the gantry sagged back down to be parallel to the slats.

Perhaps you could change the title to indicate that you found a new way to level, rather than saying ‘Unable to Level Gantry’…

I was responding to another post that was already titled.

Got it, sorry. I guess responses to three year old posts throw me off…