Hi,
I am working on a design for a custom frame to bolt my standard S3 up to my 36x36x48 80/20 enclosure. My current S3 has 1/2 plastic feet supporting it and is not secure, it is sliding around in the enclosure as my base is Formica.
I wanted the frame high enough to fit a vac hose from the front to clean underneath. This design has a overkill-but-necessary-for-height(10 inch tall), 1"x10" 6061 front and rear plate, the blue represents the stock S3 rails, the spoil board is a Ohio Diesel 1/2" Aluminum which I already have.
I also plan to install @DanStory 's most magnificent rail kit on this frame.
This is a preliminary design, was hoping some of you experts could give any advice before I start the tedious job of plotting all the hardware and the extrusion slots. The extrusion will be all 1515-LS-Black except for the two side mounts are 15/45-LS-Black
Would very much appreciate any thoughts or advice,
Thank you.
Keep in mind the bottom of the machine isn’t flat, unless you removed the front to back braces. An 80-20 frame is somewhat difficult to make truly square (and keep that way) so you might want to think about that a bit - the brackets are not truly square.
For an idea, here’s what I did…
I made a set of MDF spacers to go between the wasteboard and the table it sits on, then glued those to the bottom of the wasteboard, and to the table. I then put bolts through the nuts the feet were originally in, and use those to tweak the adjustment of the whole frame into alignment (they provide enough tension to take out a little twist that I assume is from uneven silicone under the MDF spacers). The whole thing works quite well. It doesn’t move unless the cabinet (a big tool cabinet) moves, and it stays square.
As Mikep says, the bottom of the machine is not flat, but it looks like you’re disposing of all the steel in the Shapeoko and the stock baseboard as well?
If so then you might be able to simplify that bracing on the bottom and use a taller rail as under the Y under the centre as well to support the central side to side bracing and rely on the Ohio Diesel Alu plate to keep things square once assembled?
Keen to see progress, please take pictures and post a build log.
Was looking to do away with the entire stock frame and only keep the rails. I am fairly confident that it will be solid as a rock and I can level my MDF spoil board that sits on top of the Ohio Diesel board. One of the purposes of this build is to have a solid base to mount a heavy 2.2 spindle on, and I am looking for repeatability and accuracy and no movement when the giant spindle makes sharp turns.
