For the uses most SO5 Pro’s will see…I don’t see much need to mod. Other than more power for a spindle, I can’t think of much that can be improved upon for making most of what people will be making on them. Like how much power and precision do you need for making flags, cribbage boards, 3D “Last Suppers”, and (to include myself) Star Wars Aztec calendars.
I’m 3D printing a cradle to hold the pendant and the clamps. But for what I’ll be making on it…I don’t see it getting too much better.
That said…I’m excited to see what capabilities they are adding. C3D’s engineers know what they’re doing better than I do.
Here’s my 3D printed power/feed hold pendant cradle. I love the ability to permanently mount it, but wanted a way to quickly place and remove at my minimum sized bench. . Nailed it on the first try with a fiction fit.
Has anyone with the 4x4 and VFD spindle kit try to extend the spindle to VFD cable? Mine only gives me about 24" of play from the back of the machine, which is nowhere near enough to be able to bring the controller to the front of the machine so I could utilize the spindle disable button on it. Is extending that cable even possible?
The default grbl settings do top out at like 197 IPM. But you can edit them up to 275 IPM. It is not recommended and I’m going to limit myself to 200 for projects as they recommend anyway. This was just “because science”.
@jakesmakes, I’m with you. I’d love to get my VFD closer to the control box.
I extended the VFD cable on mine by about 4-5 ft so I could mount it under the table next to the main controller. I didn’t on mine, but I imagine you could also extend the wiring of the spindle on/off switch just as easily if you wanted to bring it to the front of the table. The rpm screen on the VFD is detachable and just uses an RJ45 to extend that to the front as well.
Obviously it should go without saying if you aren’t comfortable with electrical wiring then don’t attempt it.
If you want some more info on how I did it, I can write up some more details and I think I’ve got some photos of it as well.
So the cable they use for the VFD is an Igus chainflex control cable CF130-UL which has 4 18awg conductors. If you happen to have some of that on hand great. I didn’t, but I did have some other nice 18AWG copper wire that I could use.
First off you will need to open up the VFD box, once inside you will see something like this.
The left side is the mains power, Black is hot, white neutral, green ground. The right side is what feeds to the VFD. You have a ground, and 3 black wires. On the insulating jacket they have markings of 1,2 and 3. This order is important. My photo is marked up how they were ordered on mine but always verify with yours as well.
These are the wire you will want to disconnect and extend. I just cut the sheathing back another 6 inches or so, cut off the original ferrules and used heatshrink crimp connectors to splice in the new wires in, staggering the crimps so that the cable didn’t have a huge bulge in one spot. I then also put some nylon braided sleeving, with heatshrink on both ends to hold it into place, over the section of cable that comes out the back of the shapeoko to give it some more protection.
Now you should just have to put some ferrules on the new end of the wires and reconnect correctly to the VFD, and assembly and mount the box where you have planned. This is how it looks under my table as of now.
It’s a touch screen kiosk designed for industrial sites. I upgraded the internals and use the RFID scanner and barcode scanner for home automation stuff mostly.
I just noticed in your introduction to the 5 Pro, “The table T-slot spacing is now 4.04”, instead of 100mm.” Since my 3XXL has been humming along without any adjustments since I set it down about 4 years ago, I haven’t paid attention to details of the new machine beds.
There must be some reason for this not to be a simple round number as in “4.0” inches.
It comes up in my situation, because I’ve been building fixturing on 2.0 inch spacings that fit my original 3XXL spoilboard. The difference for me is a 12 inch fixture has mounting holes spaced at 10.0 inches which would be off available centers by nearly +/- 2 inches.
I understand that there isn’t anything to be done (because you folks are always stuck between a rock and a hard place), but the thinking process would be entertaining since the work involved with adjusting fixturing designs is part of my decision making process.
I’m not sure how we ended up specifically at 4.04" but the driving factor was how to get a 48" wide span, get MDF over the majority of it, make that MDF fully machinable, leave clamping around the edge, but not grow the Y extrusions wider to fill any gaps.
Everything was going to be a compromise in some way.
Ok, its obvious that multiplying by 4.04" and 2.0" are very similar operations , but the granularity between the two gets in the way when previously designed fixturing is involved.
But, so what!? The whole machine is different! And better! (Now if I can just get someone to buy my old 3XXL … ( not really.)
I used a slight wide angle lens on my phone camera. I think that is what is creating that effect since you’re not the first person (or 20th) to say that.
Other than more power for a spindle, I can’t think of much that can be improved upon for making most of what people will be making on them. Like how much power and precision do you need for making flags, cribbage boards, 3D “Last Suppers”, and (to include myself) Star Wars Aztec calendars. 
not really.)
