This nice pic from@neilferreri’s custom Y plates had me thinking:
wouldn’t there be a way to use eccentric nuts on two of the four screws (on each side) that hold the X extrusion, to implement a convenient front/back tramming system similarly to the EasyTram plate for left/right tramming ?
I remember @wmoy videos where he would unfasten the 8 screws then manually rotate the whole X extrusion, then re-fasten. Maybe @Luke gave this some thought already ?
Since the Vwheels have a tendency to compress and potentially increase deflection maybe a screw adjustment would be advisable.
If someone is redesigning the plates, moving the motors from the back could give a fair bit of real estate on the work area. I was thinking of a U channel straddling the Y rail that would see the motor on the outside while connection to the X beam would remain inside. A second set of V wheels on the outside would also add to the stiffness of the Shapeoko.
I have my motors mounted in front of the gantry on the outside. It adds ~2”, which on an XL is about 10% extra, which is nice.
I have wondered why this isn’t done as standard…
Do you have a picture?
There are a lot of people that have reversed the Y plates. I think @ClayJar did a complete write up. You’re not really gaining motion, just motion over the base. My wasteboard overlaps the front of the machine.
Yes, I agree, I thought he had modified the plates to gain extra surface overall.
Yeah reversed plates are nice and all, but what about front/back tramming then ? Shimming is no big deal, but I would really, really like to be able to re-tram left/right AND front/back as often as I need to in a couple of minutes, so if anyone explored design options for this I would be keen to hear about it !
Could use eccentric spacers on the top v-wheels (with appropriately sized holes). The bottom ones would need to be more adjustable, maybe slots.
Mmmh, interesting, it may be simpler than a system for rotating the whole X rail.
It would be nice if the Y rail end plates had vertical slots and a bolt adjustment for height. The X end plates one regular hole for pivot and the other three slotted in an arc with bolt adjustment.
Usually the simplest way possible wins things like this.
My 2 cents
From a C3D perspective this could get tricky. The machines, when well assembled, are pretty darn close to square and tram. If they were to start adding slots and eccentrics everywhere, there would be many more issues with getting it really wrong the first time.
This is something I have looked at, I even made up a few hundred m6 eccentrics. It would need to be a general machine improvement built in to make it a worthy upgrade and ultimately would need more than just a small change. That said with the designs I’ve seen floating about over the last few days that’s not really an issue.
Right, if nobody did it so far, it must not be very easy to do as an upgrade to an existing machine. Shimming it is for now then.
I like mysterious teasers as much as the next guy, but you will need to tell us more now 
@luc.onthego - i’m on vacation now so can’t post new pictures but I have a bunch on my Instagram account dusty.tools.
Ben
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