Altmill Assembly

Community Support ❓ Something's Up
1

Hello all<

I just got my new Altmill 4x4 this Wednesday> I’m an old fart and fairly excited to have such a nice piece of equipment in my shop! I do have a few questions and issues,

  1. During the assembly and after attaching the X gantry to the Y axis rails, the movement on the Y axis rails is fairly stiff and noisy with or without the motors attached. Is this normal? I have not started up the machine as of yet due to my concern. I’ve loosened and re-tightened all the screws on the plates and rails and checked the alignment several times. I also checked for square and that seems very good. The X axis gantry rail has about the same stiffness and also makes some noise. That axis was completely built by Sienci Labs in their facility. All of the above is based on me physically pushing the gantry back and forth. I assumed it would move very freely! Has anyone else experienced this during the assembly process. Any thoughts and or comments would be greatly appreciated. I’ve called support several times over the last few days but haven’t heard back from them as of yet. It’s all built but afraid to fire it up! Thanks in advance, Rayza
2

With both motors disconnected, sliding the gantry forward or backward should be ‘tight’ but not really ‘stiff’. There should be minimal noise but you would be turning the screws when the gantry is pushed so a little noise should be expected.
It’s hard to say exactly what amount of stiffness or noise is normal because it is all relative …

3

Might also help if you could post a short video with the sound that you are hearing. You’d have to post it to another site and provide link here.

4

I’m thinking that when I’m pushing the X gantry back and forth on the Y axis rails that I might be creating more force on one side than the other, thus creating a slight out of square situation . I’m going to fire it up later today and see what happens. Hoping for the best.

Thanks for your response !