I’ve been using my Shapeoko 3XXL for a few years now and I only just realized that there is a huge amount of flex in the waste board. I’m pretty sure that’s causing a lot of my problems with z height.
Has anyone come up with a way to add some rigidity?
My current plan is to put in some threaded inserts, then make some leveling feet. It’s kind of a pain because I need to get something in the middle of the machine.
Thanks
I built a torsion box under my SO3 XXL. Then I removed the leveling feet and placed a 3/4" piece of rigid foam under the whole machine. Before the torsion box and foam I had a 3/4" piece of plywood in the center of the steel frame. The SO3 XXL was introduced in 2011 and the steel frame is known for sagging in the middle of the XXL.
The torsion box is not necessary if you have a good table the SO3 sits on. However the foam is necessary to keep the base supported all the way. Typically a 4x8 piece of foam is around $15.00 so it is an inexpensive fix. Remove the leveling feet and place the foam under the SO3. Then tram and then surface your spoilboard.
Here is my plan for making a torsion box for an SO3 XXL. Although not necessary it gives rididity to your base and the foam levels out the SO3 and gives it support. If you put the foam under the SO3 let it sit for a couple of days before tramming and spoilboard leveling. That will let the SO3 settle down into a permanent location.
torsion_box.pdf (2.0 MB)
That’s awesome I hadn’t thought about foam. I currently have it on a 4x4 torsion box so I’m in good shape there. I didn’t want to remove the feet because of all the little M4 bolts sticking through the bottom. I’ll give this a try today and see how it goes.
Thanks!
Had the same issue as well. I first ran a lag bolt under the table up to the center of the machine to push the center up and flatten it out. That didnt work so well and was evident when i resurfaced the spoil board. Now the machine sits on an inch and half piece of Styrofoam. Had to remove the legs as the other poster commented. I didnt build a torsion box as the table it sits on is made out of 3/4 plywood surface with 2 by 4s around the perimeter and 1 running center front to back. I used foam board that i had gotten from a stucco contractor and so far its worked out quite nicely
So far the foam has worked great. I ended up having to buy a full 4x8 sheet of 1" foam, but I’m sure the other half will come in handy eventually.
The center of my wasteboard rose 1/32" of an inch to give a sense of how much it deflected, now it’s rock solid.
Has anyone ever tried simply eliminating the entire Shapeoko 3 base assembly and mounting the Y-axis rails directly to a sturdy cabinet? Most of the newer competing brands seem to have gone this route. Granted, there would need to be some vertical standoff at the ends to allow space for the lower X-axis wheels to move, and new end caps to attach the Y-axis belts to. As a backup plan, I don’t intend to cut up or damage the existing base assembly, in case this doesn’t work out.
I sort of had this concept in mind when I built my cart. It is several inches wider and deeper than the 3XL, and has a nearly 3 inch thick top built up from MDF, rimmed with red oak and a top layer of tempered hardboard. There is a large removable section in the middle I had envisioned would allow me to mount taller items or work pieces needing to be cut on edge, but the stock waste board and the metal support rails are in the way.
I’ve searched this site and YouTube but seen nothing along these lines. I’m thinking of making a new spoil board using crosswise T-slots and MDF inserts, allowing for a removable section in the middle to access the opening in the cart top.
So, the question is, am I blazing new trails here, or about to fall off a cliff? If anyone else has attempted such a mod, I’d love some feedback.
Thanks.
Yes, back in the Shapeoko forum (now offline) days folks did that — at least one flipped the endplates around and cut a hole in the base it was mounted to for workholding.
Thanks for reminding me. Back when I first contemplated this, the idea of reversing the end plates had occurred to me, but that was many years and brain cells ago.
I recall seeing a post by someone who welded their S3 to a steel work table.
And then, my third brain cell says to my second brain cell . . . . Oh Yeah . . . The reason I considered and then discarded the idea of merely reversing the front and back plates was the desire to have as free a passage as possible under the 3XL to allow feeding oversized stock under the unit. If I just have 4 islands of support, under the 4 ends of the Y-axis rails, I’ll maximize this ability in both directions. Currently thinking in terms of white oak blocks, screwed to the cart top with threaded inserts.
I built a torsion box on top of my SO 3 table. I removed the leveling feet and put a 3/4" piece of rigid foam under the SO3 to support the whole base. Works well. The torsion box is not mandatory but gives me a solid base that is dead flat.
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