Because your machine position is determined buy timing belts and extruded timing pulleys…and they are made well, they are NOT very precise. This means the machine will be not as accurate in different locations. Read this from a previous post:
Once I was satisfied that my belts were properly tightened, and after chasing belt calibration for months (some areas of machine were great, other’s got worse, some sizes were great, some larger or smaller got worse, etc.), I finally got smart and mapped out the entire cutting area (S3, using a set of calibrated Gauge Blocks) and determined that the BELTS and PULLEYS vary in their timing. Some areas of the belt (inch to inch) are long (meaning 1.000" measure 1.004) while other areas were small …
AND:
Thanks Phil. The results are in a nice Excel Spreadsheet, and I posted a condensed version on here back in January (ish)…as well as on my IG (which is easier to find things then here).
PS. These numbers have been checked and re-checked, and are quite repeatable.
PS2. I stand by this statement: Out of the box, a properly set up Shapeoko will consistently produce +/- 0.003 accuracy and will repeat within 0.001".
Here are my numbers again:
[36%20PM]
Still a great machine…you just have to work with it.
1 Like