First, Hi everyone! Don here, longtime amateur woodworker and 3D terrain maker, upping my game with the SO3. I hope to tap into your experience and insight. Now, onto assembly problems:
Connecting the Gantry: the screws to secure the gantry to the base frame don’t go in. I’ve gotten 2 in so far, and another 6 holes on the gantry won’t take a screw. The gantry is lifted to align holes for both parts, I can visually see the threads clear as day. I fear I may have to force them in and perma-strip them.
Those Instructions, man: out of order, missing a significant amount of steps, sometimes vague or generic, some parts received were in a different state of assembly than instructions. Fortunately I dug into other threads here, found some useful links on the wiki that will help. I should have scouted around the forums first, it would have saved me lots of disassemble/reassembling.
Please check to see if the holes on the extrusion are properly tapped — even if they are, sometimes it’s worth getting a good quality bolt which is harder than the stainless ones in the kit and chase the threads w/ it first w/o the plate being in the way — another possibility is that the holes in the plate may be occluded by too-thick powder coating and may need to be cleared w/ a file
The other possibility is that the holes in the extrusion as tapped and the holes as punched (last time I checked the plates were made on a turret press) aren’t quite in the same position — sometimes flipping the extrusion end-for-end will result in an arrangement which fits. Might be you’ll need to file/drill out the holes in the plates — hopefully not though.
I would contact carbide3d support. Everyone says they are awesome when this kind of stuff happens. They will get you fixed up without having to resort to buying taps etc…
1 - you’re trying to fix our mistake has no affect on your warranty — if you are not satisfied with how the tapping goes, or if you can’t find the right tap, we will send you a new extrusion
2 - the holes aren’t the right size for am M6 tap — you really should be able to find one at a True Value or other hardware store (might have to buy a set from Home Depot, Lowes, or Harbor Freight)
3 - self-tapping screws, if you can get the right size would be okay — another consideration here is that the default screw size is rather short — if you mess up the threads and they get torn out you can always get longer bolts, tap deeper threads and secure the machine thus
Just a thought, if you are hand tapping I think I would be careful of the tap breaking out of the channel. There will be less resistance to the cutting action in this area and there is a good chance the thread will not be concentric with the hole leading to the screw not fitting correctly.
Good news! First off, thanks for all the feedback from everyone. I apologize if I was coming off as frustrated, but I was, then I calmed down.
Successfully tapped the channels and it took the screws smoothly. Assembled everything, had a smart buddy explain a few things, and I was making a practice circle in polystyrene in no time. Off to the tutorials!
but there is a standing offer for folks who have difficulty w/ something to either post here, or write in to support@carbide3d.com and we’ll work up a customized tutorial which addresses your problem (that’s where a lot of the unofficial tutorials came from).
