I’ve been cutting a lot of aluminum on my SO3 and it can definitely get chattery at times, especially when pushing mrr. My current settings with a 4mm single flute endmill are 24k rpm 60ipm .025” WOC .075” DOC for adaptive and 24k rpm 48 ipm .02” DOC for slotting. Wondering how much the z plus would allow me to improve on this (and potentially reduce the headache of chatter)
I have an SO3 with HDZ. I have had a SO3 XL with Z-Plus. I was not impressed by the Z-Plus. The HDZ is fantastic. The Z-Plus would be a good improvement over the Belt Z. The SO3 is getting long in the tooth and the SO5 is already out. So what ever you decide to upgrade to you need to do it soon. I am sure C3D will support the SO3 for some time but making new parts for it will not last forever.
The Z-Plus is not recommended for heavy spindles. The HDZ can handle the larger spindles with ease.
What might be a better question is why not upgrade. The SO3 is very sellable and maybe you should sell the SO3 and buy yourself a more robust machine if you are cutting a lot of aluminum.
Upgrading isn’t cheap. Sounds like he z-plus isn’t worth it though. The router isn’t mine, it’s my robotics team’s I’m just the most knowledgeable user of it. I’m just not sure I could justify the cost of upgrading, though if we did, it would be to an omio x8-2200L. Most likely would be we upgrade with a grant. How much would you estimate a 3XL that’s 3 years old could sell for?
That is hard to say. I sold my xl for $2500 about a year ago. That had a husky table bits, dust collection and everything need to roll it in a shop and start making things.
Maybe $1500 if in good shape. I listed mine on craigslist. Be patient because it is a limited market. Usually when someone comes to look they buy but it might take a month or two. Also depends on where you are. CNC machines come up for sale rarely.
Hey George, if you’re interested, I have a Z-Plus I took off my S3 XXL. It’s all in good working order. I’d let it go pretty cheap.
I did a fair amount of aluminum cutting with it and my DeWalt 611. Can’t compare to what you’re using now (assuming the belt drive z) since I didn’t have one. With the rails on tbe z-plus, it is more rigid than the belt drive, and better z-accuracy with the lead screw.
Don’t know what you’re making, but lots of examples in the forum of people doing fast/detailed and precise aluminum work on the S3 with pretty stock equipment. This is a good place to start with @Vince.Fab:
Now keep in mind, he was doing some pretty crazy stuff with the stock machine in the beginning, but towards the end I don’t know that you could call it a S3 anymore 
I’d also recommend you check out the mechanics of the machine. I was having a devil of a time getting good cuts, lots of noise, chatter, etc. with aluminum. Went through my machine piece by piece and discovered bad v-wheels, stretched belts, slipping drive pulleys, loose screws. It was a couple years of deferred maintenance on my part. And all of it I thought, well that’s so small, couldn’t be the problem. 
Each small problem compounded and made what looked like one big problem. So, if you’re experiencing a lot of chatter and noise, probably worth going through all the components, might quiet it down.
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