I realize Carbide3D no longer sells the upgrade kits, but I was wondering if it might still be feasible to upgrade a Shapeoko 3 to an XL or XXL without buying an entirely new machine? Have any resourceful folks sourced or fabbed their own parts for an upgrade?
Sometimes people have upgraded in the past from XL to XXL an have their old XL rails left over. That is about the only way I have seen people upgrade here on the forum.
I have an SO3 XXL with HDZ and all the other add ons. My SO3 is a great machine but frankly if I were to want to upgrade I would sell my existing machine and use that money to help upgrade. The Shapeoko machines rarely come up on craigslist or Facebook Market Place but when they do they are often snapped up. So maybe instead of upgrading a good machine but one that is at the end of its life cycle why not just sell the existing one and upgrade to an SO4/5/HDM. In the long run you would be better off because you are future proofing yourself.
The SO3 has a large install base and is not going away anytime soon but eventually the capabilities compared to newer machines will cause a slow death. Try recycling your existing machine to upgrade to something newer.
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Surely it is. Of course, it really depends on what you consider to be upgraded. I own a standard sized S3 and wanted easier belt adjustment, a more rigid structure, better baseboard, modular vices, spindle and VFD with a Z axis that could carry the spindle and a laser. I have all of that now and the machine is not the one I purchased. It is a credit to Carbide that the basis of the S3 is as solid as it is.
I had decided before buying my S3 (almost 4 years ago) that I wanted to keep the structure as rigid as possible and I had thought the XL and XXL rails may display some flexibility under loads. All 3 rails of the S3 are just 600mm in length. I have installed the aluminium baseboard, which has three stiffener rails underneath it and I do not see how much more rigid I can make the machine.
I recently upgraded my Z plus Z axis for the HDZ with ball screw Z axis. I am now comfortably using a 2.2kw x 80mm spindle/VFD combination and it works really well. It is probably outside of the original design specifications considered for the standard S3 but the machine is really capable. I would be unlikely to part with it now it is properly fettled.
Spindle
Laser alongside dustboot
A pair of modular vices and 12mm thick 6061 baseboard (824 x M6 holes)
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