More effective Z to Buddy

[Antti]

Hi, I have every now and then suffered a lack of effective Z-height in my ShopBot Buddy. Yesterday I realized a simple way to increase the maximum Z.

I ma not sure weather the spindle (HSD 1073) mounting plate was originally assembled upside down or not, but I just rotated it 180° and "voila" gained almost 2 inches more effective Z.

The rigidity should not be effected, since the tool bit end distance to the Z-axis support stays same as earlier.

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[Tom Bachman]

I'll have to look at the one at school to see if we can do that with it. Thanks for the tip.

[cowboy1296]

It has been so long since i did this lets hope i am describing it right. But there is a nipple on the side of the porter cable router that can be ground flat. Once flat it will allow you to side the router up inside of the sleeve. I gained an inch of z that way.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

[Tom Bachman]

Well, that router we have does have the PorterCable not a spindle, so this is something I'll look at too.

[cowboy1296]

It worked for me, but i cant take the credit. someone on here with much more experience than me suggested it.

[Joe Porter]

Also, on the router mount for the PC, you can turn the mounting (blue) plate upside down and that will give you an inch or so in Z height. Just remember though that nothing is free, when you gain z height by raising the router, the bottom of the Z mount gets closer to the work, so be sure it will clear first...joe

[Antti]

Good point Joe. I was also concerned about the Z mount gap to the work piece. However with HSD 1073 spindle this was not a problem. With HSD spindle the collet face will still position itself well below the Z mount lower end (see the image). I do not know what will be the case with Porter router.

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[Antti]

I have noticed one negative issue regarding this raised spindle assembly. This issue is related to Joe's comment regarding the bottom of Z mount. The bottom of Z mount itself hasn't been a problem, but the vertical space for dust shroud was reduced and this causes problem with shorter tool bits and max depth cut with these short bits. There is not enough space for the dust shroud. I have been using the original ShopBot dust shroud, but... :confused: I think I will be able to solve this problem with KentCNC dust shoe. I will comment further on this, once I have received the new dust shoe.

[Joe Porter]

the Kent dust shoe is a popular upgrade and is one of those few things that works as well as we hoped...joe

[Antti]

With great support from ShopBot (Ryan) I decided to installed whole new Z-extrusion with new spindle position 64 mm higher. This allowed the normal (not 180° rotated) spindle mounting plate- and thus KentCNC dust shoe assembly. Now everything works perfectly and the collet face height from sacrificial board is 220 mm eq. 5 5/8 inches. Mission accomplished!

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