My makerspace has a Shapeoko 5 Pro and about a year ago we swapped out the original clamped-to-the-spindle Sweepy for a Sweepy Pro. It’s an unambitious improvement, but we’ve had ongoing problems with crashing into the Bitsetter. It’s a shared workspace, so “just remember to remove/adjust the dust boot” doesn’t work. And regardless, that advice involves putting your hands near a spinning mill on a moving machine! That is completely unacceptable.
I’ve disassembled our Bitsetter and noticed that it is much taller than necessary. This led me wonder if anyone has designed their own which reuses the electronics, but places them in a mechanism that’s short enough to be clear of a Sweepy Pro under normal circumstances.
If not, I’m working on my own design which uses a pair of linear rods parallel to the keyswitch, rather than directly above it. If anyone is interested I can post more information.
Note: I originally posted this under the “Shapeoko Pro” subcategory by accident.
I bought the 30mm riser blocks from PWNCNC. It raises the gantry just enough that the brushes barely touch the top of the bitsetter. I don’t remove the bottom of the pro when it heads to the bitsetter now.
I chose to move the bit setter as far forward as possible. This gives more room for a dust boot and also slows a full 4x4 cutting area with the bit setter enabled.
But if you power the machine up. Move it forward. Center. Place a couple of wood blocks under the spindle with no bit installed. Loosen the 4 attachment points. You can lower the z axis under power and raise the gantry with it. Place some wood blocks under the gantry. Then raise the z axis to set it on the wood blocks.
Can confirm. I clamped my gantry to some 3’ long 2x4’s and used more 2x4’s to add some height. It was a bit of a pain to do solo, but it worked. I have to add slack to the drag chain as well.
This doesn’t fully solve my issue, since the Sweepy Pro will crash into the Bitsetter regardless of its placement, but I do like it as a way to regain use of that corner of the bed.
The gantry is raised which also raises Sweepy Pro since it is connected to the Z plate. With these risers in place the brushes kiss the bitsetter. In fact it often presses as the brushes pass over but it doesn’t matter since the software is not looking for the press at that point.
The only real downside is that the brushes only get to about 3/4” from the bed so if you are doing thinner material you have some loss there. I bought longer brushes but have not had time to make a
Sweepy shoe to support them.
Having a longer brush option or replaceable brushes from C3D would be nice.
Even without risers, Sweepy Pro doesn’t crash into the Bitsetter if it’s either fully retracted or its boot is removed. The issue is that it isn’t obvious that it needs to be retracted/removed. The result being inevitable crashes.
Even if you’re aware, it’s easy to forget since no other CNC machine has this issue. Plus, as I mentioned above, you still need to put your hands near a spinning endmill to readjust the height or reinstall the boot.
