Senior Member
Brady, there will be less flex, but you will never eliminate it altogether. Synchronised motors at each end will always hold square better than a lot of steel in between.
The question is how to synchronise the motors: Steve suggests to do it "softw.-electronically" - we do it "manu-chanically".
It may be also possible that adding steel adds weight that loads the drive motors unacceptably. I do not know this as fact. My (now former) background and history is in the software world.
My gut feeling is actually an attraction to an element of flexibility in the scaffolding. I'm unnerved by the idea of welding the frame. It seems too permanent, for too small a win, though I am not even remotely suggesting you are in the wrong Brady, not at all.
The idea of the customizing the bot over time is again attractive. Replacing the rails with better, using counterweights instead of springs, adding azimuth ajustments; all good; all things that can be done as the owner ramps up and gets savvy.
When I rebuild the carriage the spans the x axis rails for example, I intend to use quik-locks instead of nuts and bolts, sort of like a worm drive saw, whose depth adjustment is quick and easy.
The point (again) is, the software should always be there, ahead of the owner, ready for whatever level the owner wants to take the machine over time.
This same friend that spent months tuning and rebuilding his desktop bot spent hours playing with the gear ratios until it was right for him. That same ability to tune distance and speed should also be applied towards geometry correction, getting the machine to cut a simple right angle, once the frame is firmed up.
From what I've seen, the ability to collect and/or declare the offset amount is already present. Why then not just incorporate that value into motion correction that adds that extra and final bit of goodness?
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