X Axis Carriage Binding on Gantry

Good day folks.

Finally getting around to assembling my Pro table. Going pretty well when I pay attention to all the details in the instructions. I’m all the way up to Z axis tramming (step 8) when I ran into an issue. I was able to tram the carriage perpendicular to the table slats. The issue arose when I tried to take up the slack in the lower bearings. If I take up the lash at the center of the gantry I still have more than .015 gap (used a feeler guage) when the push the carriage to the far right and left. I put a framing level on the gantry and it is bowed down a good .020 in the middle which in itself shouldn’t be an issue since I have THC but the tube is out of whack enough dimensionally that it leaves me with huge torch deflection at two points in the table. The top of the Z motor will move almost a 1/10th of a inch. I can’t imagine that is going to work right. Thoughts?

Mike

I just recently completed assembling my Pro table. I am new to plasma cutting. While assembling the table I felt the parts were not as square or flat as what I am use to seeing with a solid CNC mill. I could not imagine carriages moving smoothing. I figured they would bind and lose precision. I recommend you continue with assembly and push toward making test cuts that prove or disprove out-of-square or out-of-flat causes an issue. My table (with the few cuts I’ve made) has done well. I heard someone cut a license plate with embossed letters and did not have an issue. I am thinking just continue assembling.
One note: I left the screws on the stanchion plate a little more than finger tight until the carriages moved under power. Once under power, I verified the carriages did not bind up during full travel. Then I tightened a little. Verified full travel without binding and repeated.

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I have continued with the build. So far I’m impressed with the overall value of the machine. There are reasons other machines are much more expensive. Other than the tolerance issues this piece of tubing my present the only issues I have are with the directions. They aren’t bad but there are places for improvement for sure. There are places in the doc where it would be nice to see a large view of the machine showing where the close up diagram is from. There have been a few times where I have to scroll back and forth in the docs looking at other pics to be sure I have the orientation correct.

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