@dannym let me know when a good day/time is for you to try out the 4th axis. We’ve got some wood stock and vcarve files ready.
The upgrade had to get rolled in with moving to a new setup- new fanless NUC box, Linux distro, LinuxCNC upped to 2.8.2
The rotary’s turning, but the spindle isn’t turning yet with the new box. Prob with the serial port configuration, I’m figuring it out.
The existing Dell setup is unchanged, the new box is something I just swap cables over to.
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Ok, thanks so much for working on this! Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. We’re very excited to get this up and running 
If and when there’s a demo I’d love to stop by and watch it work.
We’ll def do a demo when it’s up and running! There will eventually be a class available for folks to learn how to use the 4th axis.
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James Freeman is working on getting the sled setup for 4th axis on the new cnc router. It is going to take some work. It is in the planning stage and price quotes for material at the moment. Just a heads up
Here is a design. The head will have a small amount of adjustment. The tailstock will be able to slide in the track. The index for the tailstock is an .125" center strip. The sled will be made of .5" aluminum. The sled will be pocketcut flush into a melamine board that will index against the pins on the router.
Let me know if you have questions or concerns about the design? The overall dimensions 48" x 6" for reference
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Thanks for working on this @JoeN!!
What is the mechanism to tighten down the tailstock? Are the 1/8 rails like a t track with bolt underneath?
Would a 1/4 aluminum still be rigid enough? The jig is going to live in a cabinet next to the panel saw and have to be lifted down and carried over for each use. Any ways we can lighten the overall weight would be good.
@CLeininger tagging you here since we had chatted about jig design awhile back.
The plate is 1/2" AL. I’m going to cut t slot style tracks for the tail stock. There will be t slot style nuts below. I think I have added enough anchors going from the al to melamine to make up for the lost rigidity of the slot cuts. We can also glue the plate to the melamine board to add strength if necessary.
The thickness of the t slot is .327". I think I will use 1/4-20 socket head cap screws to tighten the tailstock. I haven’t given it a lot of thought. Maybe this Amazon. I will try to figure ways to make it a little lighter.
Got some stock and will have more time this week to cut the sled. Does anyone have melamine board (12" x 48" x .75")?
Looking good. I have a 4x4’ sheet of 3/4" melamine that I can cut off a 12" wide strip and edge band for you.
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Awesome. Thank you sir
I stashed the panel behind the small CNC dust collector.
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I will pick it up tonight. Thank you so much
Here is some progress pics. The cut files for the melamine are done. The melamine cut will be done this week. I should be able to deliver Sunday. The sliding slot allows the tailstock to touch the chuck. There won’t be any limits in terms of length.
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This looks fantastic! I will have a file ready to test it out on the swift in a couple weeks. My daughter’s first birthday is coming up so that is taking precedence haha
Are we still doing melamine the full size of vacuum space A on the Swift? I know that is a ton of material and would be super heavy so I can brainstorm some other options.
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I think the whole setup is 30lbs right now. I’m going to pocket the melamine and remove some material. The melamine is 12" x 48" x 3/4". Depending on how the testing goes in terms of rigidty. We can cut some more pockets from the melamine? I think we should also add 2 handles
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If it makes more sense. We can use other materials for the sled. I’m going to finish this for now to get testing on the road