Introducing HDZ 4.0

I agree. I wouldn’t be looking at the ZPlus documentation at all except I was mistakenly sent the link to answer the proximity sensor questions. The ZPlus doc has a page and warning right on it - to be done before disassembly!

Hey @WillAdams, would you mind commenting on this one? I want to get started today.

I would think this is the same reason the ATMs give you your card back before the money: just so you don’t skip this important step in the excitement of doing the first homing with the new Z :slight_smile:

:slight_smile: But what’s happening to me is that I’m getting paralyzed. I want to install this thing…I’ve been clamoring about it for weeks…but now I’m not trusting the instructions. While I could just “Try it”, and I’m sure nothing bad will come of that, the other instructions from Carbide have been so good, particularly when you need to touch the board, that I’m hesitant to just jump in.

Understandable.
While waiting for the instructions I guess asking each and every question you have here is the best workaround (and/or sending them to support)

Well…that might be a PITA for folks following…but maybe others are facing the same issues.

The irony of support is, yesterday, I posted here and also sent a note to support - and Will answered in BOTH places!

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Will is alarmingly fast. Also everywhere. There are reddit threads that he’s posted answers to before I’ve finished typing a response, same here.

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Have you considered the possibility that Will may be a smart script? :smiling_imp:

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He passes the Turing Test every time!

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OK Gang…It’s done! I did the entire upgrade…used the Z-Plus manual to make sense of the installation instructions for the proximity sensors and the rest from the HDZ4 manual. It will be a lot easier when Carbide updates the manual for the HDZ4 to include the directions for the proximity sensors.

MUCHO many thanks to @RoughDraft40 Brian for sending me his printed ears for his original setup. With a very minimal adaptation (basically, just countersinking some screws), I was able to make it work for me and keep my SuckIt option!

I’m very happy with the result. The HDZ seems to be a production-quality piece of equipment.

Here are some photos:

  • Gary
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I have said it before but I will say it again:

Carbide 3d makes great machines, has great customer service but they suck at technical documentation. Much more detail needs to be taken when writing your upgrade instructions. I suspect that the engineers that develop the upgrades most likely write the upgrade instructions but when you get someone that knows so much about a product they usually do not take into consideration the perspective of someone that does not know anything about the product/upgrade.

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As a reference, for anyone else who is in the process of installing the HDZ4, Use the ZPlus documentation to supplement the HDZ4 documentation (until it gets updated):

From this document, you’ll find CORRECT info as follows:

  • Page 7 Which tells you to disconnect your BitSetter, if you have one. HDZ users need to do this too and it’s missing from the HDZ4 instructions
  • Pages 15-18 Drag Chain Support installation
  • Pages 19-20 Installing the proximity sensors - INCLUDING WHICH LENGTH GOES TO WHICH LOCATION)
  • Pages 28-29 Installing the riser board and the sensor connections. If you watch Winton’s video (linked above), you will note that he has a Shapeoko 3 and that XL and XXL users will have a different board and things are in completely different locations…this documentation on page 28 and 29 is very clear

With those pages and the HDZ documentation, the installation went smoothly. I had to remember how to set my BitSetter again, but found that clearly in the BitSetter installation guide.

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Yep, technical documentation is hard and time consuming to get right and typically, as you say, the engineers who made the thing no longer have the new user perspective to document it.

One option is for the company to select a pool of early adopter users whose role it is to test out a new product. These users accept that the product will have glitches and bumps but are experienced enough to identify and fix them. This would allow the company to identify things like “missing M3 bolts” and review the initial documentation. The feedback could either go back to the company individually, or if there is no commercial sensitivity between users the review users could collaboratively update the docs in a Wiki format to produce user grade docs ready for publication.

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Absolutely a great idea.

As it turns out, in this case, all of the documentation needed has already been created. The pages in the ZPlus manual are almost perfect (except for the Z axis sensor placement). They could be lifted and placed into the HDZ manual and clear up a lot of confusion. In the interim, support could just pull those pages and make a packet that can be sent to anyone who has a problem (or, proactively to anyone who was shipped the old documentation).

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