Expanding Shapeoko 3 XL to XXL

I am getting ready to expand my XL and finally opened one of the extrusions in the kit I got a month or so ago and it has 6 tapped holes in the outside face of the extrusion. I only expected two holes for the control box but there are two other pairs spaced on the front and back of the outside face. I have never seen a picture of an XXL which had anything other than a control box on one outside face. Are these additional tapped holes for something specific or maybe the extrusion was from a prototype and I can use the holes for additional Y rail supports? I may go XXXL by joining the new extrusions to the existing XL rails and more support would make me feel better.

The holes on a diagonal are for the controller. Edit: as @gdon_2003 noted, FURTHER EDIT: if you had an SO3 and were upgrading to an XL your old X-axis gantry extrusion will need to be moved to be the left Y-axis extrusion.

The two in-line holes at the center are for the optional BitRunner accessory.

If you have multiples of either then the holes are spares and not needed.

The newest version of the controller has a two piece case. The controller mounts in the base half and is mounted to the original diagonal holes that the original large heat sink was mounted on. The original large heat sink has been replaced by some thermal tape that is put on the back of the board and then the board is screwed to the base half of the controller mounting housing. When you get the bottom half of the controller mounted then you put the top half of the controller housing on with 4 thumb screws. Attach your external wires like the BitRunner and USB cables as well as the power supply.

If you have an older machine with the one piece case and the large heat sink you can still use it just move it from the shorter XL rail to the XXL rail.

If you have a BitRunner I modified my two piece controller case by cutting out the back side of the hole so I do not need to remove the BitRunner cable if I need to remove the controller case to look at lights etc. Every time I removed the BitRunner cable I had to fiddle around with it to get the BitRunner to work again.

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I have neither the bitrunner nor a two piece control but studying the situation more closely, I don’t think I will have use for the extra holes. I am confused though by Will’s edit. Why do I need to move my old X-axis gantry extrusion to be the left Y-axis extrusion?

You don’t. I was thinking of the upgrade from an SO3 to an XL.

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