Ahren has been great, twice bailing me out with a quick shipment in the mail. so nice, and rare nowadays, to get good customer service.
here is my new machine. I designed and cut the cable mgmt. chain as a first project. it all snaps together, no glue or screws, and has been working fine. the links pop off for threading cables thru, but I found it easy to push them thru while all together. some links extend and are bolted to the underside of the gantry, then one is part of a plate that mounts the chain end to the stepper plate.
I installed limit/homing switches which are plenty accurate. I adjusted the A drive squareness by adding shims to the spot where it bumps, rather than moving the switch location. I recognize that these switches are susceptible to damage, so I need to be careful not to bang into them with stock.
I just added a touch plate. I wrote a mach3 script that recognizes metric/imperial measurements and does a fast and slow probe for an accurate measurement. it uses the Z offset setting from the offsets page of mach3mill. the script is avail. in the mach3 forum.
initially I had all the electronics mounted inside. it was hard to access and didn't cool real well. I have simple 110V light switches for emergency RESET, gecko controller, and router/vac. I also bought a harbor freight speed controller for the router. my x/p computer is inside the table. the white cloth door is held on with magnets and reduces the dust inside.
notice I extended the Y axis bumpers. this eliminates the possibility of crashing the Z carriage down onto the gantry risers.




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