How to adjust Z side to side swing?

[plemon]

Hey Guys,

Resurfacing my table and I have decided to do my best to get rid of tooling ridges from my surfacer. It looks like the Z carraige needs to be tilted ever slow slightly and they'll be gone. I couldn't get the precision I needed for the forward and back of the z so I got little micro spacer pieces of metal (.25mm thick) and inserted it behind the base of the spindle just above the mounting bolts. I want to do a similar micro adjust for the side to side swing.

Any suggestions?

Phil

[Gary Campbell]

Phil...
I have done this to both my machines. I ended up loosening the 16 bolts that fasten the end plates to the Y extrusion to get enough adjustment in the X direction.

To adjust in the Y direction, loosen the 6 bolts that hold the spindle mounting plate to the Z extrusion and adjust. I have had to bore these holes and their counterbore larger to have enough adjustment.

Other adjustments are placing shims as you describe (.010) between the Y extrusion and side plates to square gantry. Also .010 shims on the 10mm bolts behind the X V rollers. All in all, if you take the time you can get them near perfect. The closer to perfect they are, the better and faster they cut.

One other "enhancement" you can make is to toss the OEM surfacing routine that cuts those ever decreasing rectangles for one that cuts in the X direction only. That particular file has the tendency to exaggerate both setup errors and the inherent play in the machine. Its hard enough keeping a 3/8 bit straight, let alone a 2 1/2" surfacer.

[plemon]

Thanks Gary,

I ditched the default routine for surfacing after learning about the raster direction in Partworks. Makes a big difference, especially on my 23" Z as there is always a little play over such an extension.

I like the idea of boring out more for the spindle mount, that sounds like easiest to adjust once the drilling is done.

I'm using a 2" surfacer on a 50% stepover so that it makes it really obvious when adjustments are out.

Thanks again. Time to disassemble and start drilling.

Phil

[wberminio]

You might want to try Paco's surfacing routine

http://pacosarea.blogspot.com/2007/02/surfacing-along-axis-shopbot-routine.html

It works very well for surfacing solid wood and spoilboards