Is there a way to determine the age of a SO4? I have a chance at a used SO4XL and would like to have a ballpark idea of how old it is before I buy it. It does have the ZPlus and hybrid table but the V wheels are white.
Hoping I can find a serial number on it tomorrow afternoon.
Anyone have any ideas?
White V wheels were quite early production.
SO4s didn’t get serial numbers — we stopped doing them for Shapeokos back when we were still doing SO3s.
That said, a Maintenance Kit:
(be sure to pick the right model)
will allow one to rebuild a machine to pretty much like-new.
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So if the SO4 went into production mid 2021 it’s likely not more than 4 ish years old worst case scenario?
If I do get it, the maintenance kit was the first thing I thought of 
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Well I picked up this machine tonight. It’s definitely an early SO4 XL model and the machine itself is in very good condition but it does need a good bit of operator maintenance. I ordered a maintenance kit so hopefully in a few days I’ll be tuning it up.
It came with some C3D and aftermarket endmills, an C3D ER11 router and some spare hardware.
For those of you who remember my mahogany lumber score and few weeks ago… buying this machine was an even better score.
… Now where did I put that horse shoe?? 
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Sounds like your Mahogany haul just lost half its expected life span!! 
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So, when did they change it so that every SO3 kit was Serial Number 0001 ?
Those were just advertising cards, not real serial numbers.
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I received the maintenance kit today after a bit of a shipping delay. I spent the afternoon installing it and had a few successful gantry movements before the Z proximity sensor started acting up. I found the issue was the harness connection so I used a couple small tie wraps to secure the connector to the harness and it works fine. I’m not 100% confident in the connection so if I have more issues I may just solder the wires together. Other than that things seem to be good and I can’t wait to get cutting on it.
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Update… A couple weeks ago I met a local guy who recently bought a 5 Pro 4x2. He got a 5 Pro maintenance kit with his machine and gave me a little bit of the Vactra2 oil so I could lube my 4XL. Vactra2 is basically impossible to source in small quantities here in Canada.
Today I lubed all the bearings and was running the machine through its paces when I had Z axis issues again. It wouldn’t initialize and when it did move it would give me all kinds errors and the Z plate would chatter badly. I had previously found the Z proximity sensor connector was causing me issues and had tie wrapped it but today I cut it out and soldered the wires together. The problem persisted and I figured out that the Z stepper motor harness connector was also not keeping a solid connection. Instead of removing the connector and soldering the wires I did a temporary fix again with a few small zip ties to tighten the connection it’s now working fine. I’m going to try find a more robust connector and replace it.
If you haven’t made any destructive modifications, please send photos of your Z-axis motor wiring and connectors to support and we’ll see if it’s from a bad lot and if that is the case we can look into how to get a replacement to you.
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Thanks Will but this machine is about 4 years old so would that still be an option? I bought it used a couple months ago…
The Micro-Fit connectors should be quite reliable and secure — if they’re not, let us know and we will look into how this should be handled.
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OK thanks Will. I’ll get a couple pics tomorrow and send them in to Support with the story behind it.
Cut it in half and count the growth rings?
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It took 26 days but I knew there wood be a wood joke sooner or later!
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