Glad it was helpful! In general you should expect bolts, wires, and other things to come loose or otherwise act up as you break your machine in. I recommend checking these regularly in your first couple of cuts. Setup, vibration, and movement are guaranteed to make a slightly loose bolt become very loose! Here are some other things mistakes I’ve made that maybe you can learn from:
- One of my Y Axis motor couplers came loose and the Y Axis got misaligned. I had to tighten the coupler’s collar screw because the motor wasn’t properly spinning the ball screw shaft.
- I pulled a motor wire loose from it’s connector when securing the wiring, causing Y Axis misalignment again - motor wasn’t turning at all.
- I didn’t make the tabs thick enough on an early cut, the piece came loose and damaged my 1/4" downcut endmill when it cut into a hold down bolt.
- I didn’t know you should flatten your spoil board. Mine is only about 1/16th over 36" and I mostly cut small parts so I haven’t flattened mine but if you are going to cut big things, make sure your board is flat! An easy way to check is to lower your bit to about 1/8" from the spoilboard and jog it around slowly, checking the gap. There are more sophisticated ways to check but this is a simple way.
- The default tool speeds are REALLY conservative. I often run my cuts at 130% or manually change the feed speeds. If you do this, start slow and listen to your router RPMs.
- I have a sort of “pre-flight checklist” that helps remember all the things to do when starting a cut so I make fewer mistakes.