I was assembling my Shapeoko XL the other day and just realized I forgot to add the loctite to the screws that mount the spindle mount… The whole machine is assembled now, and it looks like I’ll have to do some serious backtracking just to get to these two screws, so I wanted to see what you guys think about the necessity of loctite on these 2 screws. For reference, I only plan on milling wood. No plans for metal, so maybe the vibrations won’t be too bad that it would be an issue? I also remember cranking these screws down really tight when I mounted it in the first place. Let me know your thoughts! Can’t wait to get this CNC journey underway!
Also… if you really think I need that loctite, do you have any ideas of how I can get to those screws without tearing everything apart? I can’t seem to figure out how to get to them easily.
I put loctite on almost nothing when assembling mine and then made regular checks of tightness on all the key fasteners through the first few hours of use, I then put loctite on all of those that actually came loose.
V wheel bolts into the eccentric nuts, stepper motor pulley set screws are the most likely slippages IMO.
If you can get to the back of the bolts to tighten them or check them I’d run it and see.
Thanks for your response Liam. Yeah i literally put loctite on nothing when assembling. I looked over the assembly instructions and the only time it actually calls out to use it is on the 2 spindle mount screws.
Well, there may well be a reason why that’s called out so I’d want to be able to check them, can you get to them to check their tightness without disassebling? (I’m guessing you have the Z Plus with the lead screw rather than the old belt drive Z as it’s a new machine).
There’s a handy section on maintenance in Julien’s e-book here.
It’s generally a lot better to loctite a bolt that comes loose than to tighten it gorilla tight so those that do come loose, spin them out and put the blue goo on them, you only need a tiny amount run into the thread.
Thanks for that eBook link! That looks so useful! I don’t know how I would have found it otherwise.
Funny you mention the Z-Plus… I think I ordered the last machine with the belt because the day after I ordered the belt option was gone haha. Saved me some money by acting a day earlier. I’ll tinker around some more and see if I can get to it this weekend…
I found you can actually drop the sliding plate of the regular Z off without much disassembly. If you bring the X axis all the way forward and loosen off the belt tensioner to drop the belt off you should be able to drop it far enough to access the spindle mount screws from the back.
I had to do this a lot because I used a non-standard router which needed a complex bodge to mount it.
OMG you’re right! Now that I think about it that should totally work. I was thinking I need to take the whole plate off when in reality I just need it to slide down far enough to reach the screws! Liam, you are a life saver. I’ll post pics when I get back in my shop and try that. Thanks again my friend!
So I was able to get the Z-plate down far enough after taking the springs off without having to remove the entire plate and readjusting the belt. Screws are all sealed up now and I don’t have to worry about it anymore!
