1000X1000 upgrade? What is the actual cutting area?

[Jones]

As the topic states, what is the actual usable cutting area of the 1000mm upgrade kit? I am looking at the kit for large picture frames but I want to know exactly the limits of the machine. Also, for future reference, what are the drawbacks to this particular upgrade? Anything I should know going into this?

[WillAdams]

As noted on the about page, http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/About --- it's about 12″ × 12″ × 2.5″ (300mm × 300mm × 60mm) for a stock machine.

Since the extrusion length is increasing from 500 to 1000, one just adds the difference, so it should be about 31 3/8" x 31 3/8" (800mm x 800mm) --- Z should be unchanged, and one can probably get a little bit more working area by tweaking the belt anchoring, or one might lose some to limit switches.

[Gadgetman!]

Note that you need to let the wasteboard extend in front of the endplates, or you'll be limted to about 750mm in the Y-axis.
(Or even less. That's what I get on my ShapeOko. But I believe the motor mount plates on the SO2 are slightly longer, so... YMMV )
It also depends on how you fasten the belts. Some 'on top of rail' mounts will stop the carriages from traveling the full length of the rails.

[oniontalker]

Getting the Z-axis belt drive and getting your spindle/router mounted as close as possible would help bring some of that Y travel back inside the frame.

Drawbacks...
You'll have to be conscious of the rigidity of the machine, there's plenty of methods to help with this though.
You'll need proper wire management, there's a slew of ways to do this, before I got drag chain I used a bunch of random things I found around the gar(b)age:



WillAdams mentioned about the cutting area of the original machine being 300mm x 300mm, that's using 500mm extrusion, so 800mm x 800mm is what I'd ever advertise it as without tweaking.
I'd just subtract 200mm from whatever size extrusion you're using to get a close number to what it will end up being.

As for subtracting from the area, I added an extra piece of 20x40x1000 aluminum profile extrusion to the X-axis to add rigidity, which would cut around 15mm from the Y travel.

I'll head out to the garage today and give a check as to what exactly I'm capable of cutting today, for an exact number.

[oniontalker]

With tweaking one end of the Y axis belt anchors and one side of belt pulleys...

X = 804mm

Without existing the table with my current mount/router:

Y = 765mm

Of the table it will go to:

Y = 808mm

With the Z-axis belt drive, a closer mount and getting the belt anchors out of the way, I should be able to add at least 10mm to Y travel, most of that on the table.

X travel, with belt anchoring figured and trimming both belt pulleys that end up in the way, maybe 15mm.

[groguard]

A couple things I would recommend is getting mid span supports, and either going with 2 makerslide with a 20x40 extrusion sandwiched between, or doing what I did and get a piece of 40x60 extrusion and using openrail. This requires widening the X carriage to fit the new wider extrusion. If you take a look at my build log I have everything documented for the most part.

[oniontalker]

I put that extra piece in between and bolted them together.
I'd love to get some hefty extrusion, but I just can't find it where I'm at.
I was however going to get some steel bar and connect it to the tops and bottoms, grabbed 5mm, but it with the screws I have, it was too thick and the spacers didn't clear it.