I opened a ticket but Sienci Labs is closed now and I am stuck. I figured I would ask here in case somebody has already gone through this …
In the Altmill assembly instructions, there are two instances were instructions say (paraphrased) use two cap screws with washers and loosely tighten them. The instructions then say to install the other two cap screws. There is no mention of washers for the other two cap screws. This was encountered when attaching the legs to the frame and then again when installing the x gantry on the side plates. My take is that I should probably use washers for the second set of 4 screws for each occasion but the first set is specifically called out to be with washers and the second set just calls for installing the remaining 2 screws.
I am concerned that I might possibly run out of washers further on in the instructions and be faced with having to backtrack and disassemble some stuff.
My question is simply ‘should I assume the instructions meant to say to use washers on all 4 of the attachment screws for each instance instead of just two of the 4 screws?’
I found another situation where I had to use my best guess … there are cap screws that do not have loctite applied for attaching the cross rails but further down in the instructions the same size of cap screw is used in the x rail installation without specifically calling out to use the version of cap screw that has loctite applied. I used the plain screws at first before realizing that all the other screws in this area used loctite . I searched through the screws and found the screws with the loctite and used those instead.
Thanks for posting the link to the video. While it didn’t help to answer my specific questions, it did reveal that I might have not fully understood a couple of points (need to check on that tomorrow).
The video generally followed the assembly instructions from the resources page but there were some differences and in one instance the video corrected wrong instructions from the assembly guide (I had tripped over this error during my assembly, triple checked and decided to follow the written assembly instructions even though I thought they were wrong - the video confirmed that the written instructions were wrong). The video also expanded on a few things here and there so I was very happy to have seen the video (and will watch it again tomorrow as I go over my machine again).
All-in-all the assembly instructions from the resources page were pretty good but as good as they were, they need to be updated and/or corrected. Towards the end of my assembly I decided to just get on with it rather than pointing out inconsistencies. Somebody else can follow up with any additional corrections as needed. Hopefully, the stuff I tripped over and pointed out will be incorporated in future revisions of the instructions.
Hmm, not sure if the written instructions are ‘wrong’ in any place… the video even states that the written instructions are the most up-to-date. I followed the written and only used the video to help me identify parts or gauge orientation. Either way, no issues with my AltMill and it ran great following the written instructions.
Hope whatever the issue is, it is easy to resolve.
Heard back from Sienci this morning. As it turned out, the legs are assembled with washers on all 4 screws for each leg but the X gantry only uses two washers on the upper corner of each side.
I hope this info will be useful for other people as they build their mill.
I will be going over my partially assembled mill again this morning and, while watching the video mentioned above, go over everything again. The spindle box is scheduled for arrival this afternoon so I have some time to confirm (or correct) what I have done so far.
