Simple, effective upgrade for my SO3 XXL

The photo probably doesn’t do it justice, but here’s a simple upgrade to help keep my workshop a bit clearer of flying chips:

Attached to the edges of the baseboard with 3x 3/4" screws, I’ve added a piece of 6mm ply that butts up against the bottom of the Y1 and Y2 axes to stop the chips being flung out either side and across the workbench. I might do something similar at the back, on the outside of the frame, but it’s a bit of a tight fit, so will wait until I move the machine - if I ever do.

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Agreed, I did this as a temporary thing and…never took them off since then.

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I did the same with some acrylic. Works great at stopping the chips flying everywhere

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I did something a bit different. Shopped McMaster Carr for conveyor brushes and installed them under the X and Y rails.



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Ooh, that’s nice!

It even looks like the brush on the X axis polishes your aluminium table, too!

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Brilliant idea!
And then you can sweep the chips away from the work area by just jogging to the front position, neat :upside_down_face:

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That’s a pretty cool idea. Have you had any issues with static build-up?

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No issues to date and have only run a wood job on the brushes so far,. I haven’t done large plastic jobs like PVC where it sounds like that static stuff rears its head.

In my setu, I would think any static build up discharges to the metal baseplate before it’s a problem. You can get static disappating brushes too. But I’m not sure what is different about them though.

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Great idea What did you use to install the brushes.
Thanks Jeff Peters

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The brushes are mounted into an aluminum extrusion profile you buy with the brushes. The steel backer of the brushes slides into that profile. There are a few styles of aluminum extrusion to choose from. For the sides I chose a profile that allowed me to mount underside of the rails and for the gantry I chose an extrusion that allowed me to mount to the back corner of the rail.

Now mounting the extrusions is where I made a concession. Since I didn’t want to take the machine to pieces to drill and tap for screws, I used VHB tape. If I need to replace a brush in the future, it will require me to take that rail out of the machine due to how the strip of brush slides into the extruded holders.

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What I like about the brushes solution over the solid - is that you still can cut boards that are larger than your table.

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do you recall the McMaster part number for the long brushes you have taped to your x-axis rail? Thanks

Invoice of the complete order for the project.

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Mine was much cheaper, being only 6mm ply, cut to size :rofl:

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Oh for sure. But half the fun for me is over engineering fixes to my problems. :joy:

Plus McMaster bends you over in price usually. Nice thing was I could pickup my stuff next day.

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If you can pick it up that’s a Godsend…their shipping charges are unbelievable. I once ordered a bunch of bolts, washers, and nuts ($35 in goods) and the shipping was over $20! I called them and they lowered it to $7.95. They had raised it because they were shipping from different warehouses and each was getting full shipping charged…so they only charged me for one of them.

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