Well, my XXL (full kit) arrived a few hours ago. Since I know some folks are interested in what you actually get, I thought I would document the unboxing process and share it here along with some thoughts and comments. @edwardrford and Carbide 3D support will want to take note, as there WERE some casualties and oddities along the way.
Rather than leaving anything out, I am going to error on the side of being overly verbose with the amount of pictures I’m sharing. Apologies to the TL;DR and Twitter crowd…
This is the package as it arrived. I placed the Dewalt router on top so you can gauge the relative size of this thing
The XXL is double-boxed, so here is the inner container after peeling off the outer. The box weighs 130 pounds, so there wasn’t really an easy way to slide the inner container out by myself…
As you might have noted in the previous picture, the inner container has moderate damage on this one corner despite the outer shell not showing any indication of such. This is the root cause of the casualties I mentioned and will become obvious in forthcoming shots
Here is what you find once you remove the lid of the inner container…
…and after removing some of the packing cardboard…note that two of the sealed boxes are actually empty and used as filler
Now, back to the corner damage…let’s take a peek down inside the container to see that things are not all well…
Here’s what the wasteboards looked like removed from the carton - these are 42" x 19.75" each, for the record
Now some closeups of the corners that were crushed…one wasteboard is worse than the other…I’m not pleased with this, but I don’t know if ultimately the damage will cause any mechanical or precision issues were I to assemble as-is
Moving on…I have now removed all the contents of the inner carton. This is everything else (beyond the wasteboards) as packaged
I did not order the kit WITH a router (already have several), but here is the Dewalt 611 spindle mount that is included. SO3 owners will find nothing new here…
Here is the electronics assembly - the PCB, heatsink, and the new fully-enclosed metal cover. Note the 3 holes available for routing cabling in/out of the enclosure
Here is what you will find upon removing the enclosure. Note the o-rings Carbide includes to protect the cabling from the sharp-edged metal circular cutouts
The full kits arrive with the latest 2.3 version of the PCB and the capacitor “fix” - more on questions I have regarding mounting position later
One of the boxes contains all the included tools, fasteners, cable management, serial plate (#1817 in my case), power supply, limit switch kit, belting, and so forth
The gantry assemblies are individually boxed and marked left and right - This is the left side assembly as shipped. Note that the stepper motor cable/connector is only about 14" in length which is a problem…
…and this would be the mirrored right-side assembly…Note that the stepper motor cable/connector here is also only about 14" in length which is a problem…
Now for some more items for the support and quality control teams…many of the plates and straps show definite signs of “human handling”…from fingerprints and dirt to grease and “mystery blobs of goo” as shown below.
Now for the one most folks are probably curious about…the Z-Axis assembly. I’m providing many shots and angles here to try and answer any questions people might have. Again, this is all pre-assembled and boxed separately. I will mention that it looks like the belting here is only 6mm and not 9mm like the X and Y. Perhaps there wasn’t room for a wider belt and pulleys?
The XXL kit (and maybe the XL?) took a different approach. No more PITA criss-crossing straps that were a nightmare to line up. The following are the 3 beefy cross-straps with folded edges. These run perpendicular to the end straps and parallel to the Y axis extrusions
Speaking of end straps, here they are…very hefty and these have the attachment points for the leveling feet.
OK, last but not least…the new longer extrusions…one of the packs is marked with an X, so the assumption is that this is meant for the X-Axis. I say “assumption” because this extrusion has two threaded holes in it and I could have sworn I saw prototypes of the XL/XXL with the electronics mounted to the SIDE of the machine on one of the Y rails. Wasn’t this new approach supposed to further resolve the EM interference issues from the Dewalt router? Now, as far as I can tell, the electronics can only be mounted in the same configuration as the original SO3 units. Puzzled…
A few shots of the internal extrusion threads - look fine to me…and no leftover aluminum swarf/chips to cut my hands up this time! (Although there IS what appears to be sawdust or something in these?)
And the dual Y extrusions…lengths seem to match up from a visual back-to-back comparison.
Alright, hope everyone enjoyed the 50ish picture tour of the XXL as-shipped from Carbide 3D/Edward… Happy to answer specific questions anyone may have regarding the contents.
@edwardrford / Carbide 3D support: Here is a summation of the issues I ran across:
- Box damage of the INNER container only which seems to have resulted in two banged up wasteboards.
- At least one of the pre-assembled V-Wheels is really tight to the point where they almost don’t move without considerable force. The other V-Wheels spin freely as expected.
- What’s the “white mystery goo” and other assembly “remnants” all over things?
- Is the electronics assembly really still supposed to be riding on the back of the X axis extrusion? I’m pretty sure I saw pictures of it mounted to the side of a pre-production unit…
- I still cannot locate any instructions for the final assembly of the kit. While I imagine I could “figure it out,” I’d rather not experiment with various fastener sizes. I can’t even confirm I have all the parts without an official BOM. There wasn’t any paperwork of any kind in the box telling me where to start, thanks for buying, etc.
- The stepper motor leads and connectors are all approximately 14" long. I can see these probably working for the X and Z motors to the PCB, but I can’t fathom how the Y motors can reach the electronics without much longer cables. I went back and looked through the accessories box and can’t find any sort of extensions or other options that would make this work.
- Thanks for all your hard work on these new versions…hope this feedback helps!
-craig