Measuring belt tension, squaring and calibration

This has been an interesting journey that I apparently took in the wrong direction.

  1. measured and squared the Shapeoko
  2. aligned the spindle
  3. made my wasteboard (not knowing about $100, $101 settings)
  4. Learned about measuring and changing $100 and $101 values
  5. Burdened with the knowledge that my wasteboard was not really a 1.5" grid (based off my $100 and $101 recalibration) even though holding a ruler up to it I could not tell.
  6. Followed @LiamN advice on this post and properly tightened by belts.
  7. Went back to step 1 (it was still square).
  8. Skipped to step 4, reset $100 and $101 to 40 and remeasured. Calculated 39.996 for X and a number even closer to 40 for Y.
  9. Reset my $100 and $101 values back to the factory default of 40, and had a good laugh at my journey.

I really do appreciate all the knowledge you guys share on this forum. I took a very clumsy path but I like where I ended up and could not have figured this out on my own.

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