I waited a while before posting, to try to get some support from VSLOT-EUROPE, but now that I've given up I have to say I've been quite disappointed. Had to wait a week to get the eccentric spacers that weren't in the kit, I had to figure out and spend considerable time filing the 2 X gantries that were'nt exactly the same size, but more importantly... There were also quite a few bits I had to source myself. The Z motor coupler was the wrong size, and the replacement doesn't have a scrub for the flat on the motor. Also quite a few screws were of the wrong size (8mm instead of the 10mm needed, 25mm instead of the 30mm needed for the wheels, etc)

But, the big problem was that the Y plates were cut on an uncalibrated machine, so they were too big, space between holes for the V slots for example don't match the V-slot extrusion, and I had to do a lot of filing.
One place I couldn't not fix was the space between the wheels that was WAY too big, I had measured it and I was sure that even with the eccentrics, it'd still be 2mm too wide for the wheels to even touch... but I couldn't do anything because I didn't have the ecentrics to try them on.

Waited a week, got the eccentrics, and sure enough, there was even more space, it was more like 2mm. So I asked what to do, got zero answers, decided to try to file the holes inward.. and they made the wheel touch, but of course, as soon as you tweaked the eccentric, the screw was moving and making it useless. I event tried filling the bottom with solder to try to prevent that, but well, solder is too soft and doesn't bond with the Aluminium.

All the while, I sent pictures, messages to VSLOT-EUROPE and request for suggestions and got.. nothing in reply.

I eventually had to re-drill the holes myself, alongside the bad ones; the difficult bit was of course finding an imperial drill bit, not easy to find around here.

Anyway, quite frankly I don't recommend this kit.

 

Amazing coincidence, strangely enough, support just came alive and is sending me replacement plates, figured the one I had were out of kilter, like, I hadn't mentioned that over a week ago. Anyway, this doesn't change my opinion, there was ample time to sort things out. I'm totally happy tinkering with a 'kit', seriously, I am, I consider this part of the fun -- forget about odd the 2 quid pack of screws delivered next day from ebay, it's OK...
However, it's still 900 euros and if something is obviously wrong with one of the /key/ component, you kind of rely on some sort of support. I'm saying that I haven't tried any of the steppers yet, but, they all got openbuilds's tag so one can hope I'll be fine )

 

Coincidence or hand of the master?

 

@buserror
Hi, have you considered buying from Openbuilds Italia? I'm from Germany, I have already bought 500 € of goods from them and I'm very satisfied. They have much more products then Openbuilds Europe and they have also an CNC cutting service. The internet site is in italian language but you can swich it in englich. Try it.
Bye

 

I like the fact that there is an alternative for V-slot Europe, but the prices at Openbuilds Italia are considerably higher than V-Slot Europe. The Ox kit goes from 450 (no VAT due to French regulations) to 550 + VAT = 671 euro. That is pretty steep. And strange, since e.g. the 20x40 profiles and ACME lead screw (just two items I checked) are more or less comparable in price... uhm.... apart from the VAT that is.

 

@hck
Hi, you are right, prices are higher, but sometimes it's better to spend a little bit more and have a better service and more choice, obviously, there are some limits, a supplier should not be "married" it is always better to buy from 2 or 3 different suppliers and take the best that they have.
In Europe I've found 3 suppliers for V-slot system, Openbuild Europe, Openbuild Italia and another one in England (forgot the name).
That from England, absolutely not, to much expensive, also because the money change from € to £....
Openbuild Europe is the cheaper but with very poor products, also the basics, and now, I'm reading that service is not very good.
Openbuilds Italia (for now) is the best choice for products, service, and acceptable prices.
For the future I don't know, the market is always on the move.

 

I think that if I has initially ordered my OX from Italy, I would have had a serious problem with the WAF (Wife Acceptancy Factor) Still, I will be modifying a number of things that will require me to order new stuff and chances are that they will come from Italy....

 

Well, now that's out of the way, I would like to repeat that the plates I got from Chris were of excellent quality with equal after sales service. All the stuff from Openbuilds US was flawless and super well packed to prevent damage. Even though I forgot some essential things, Mark and his team took care of a high speed delivery all the way to Thailand so I wouldn't loose to much time with the build. The build was made pretty easy with Mark's videos as a manual, and the fine tuning of the machine pretty easy too with all the help of the forum members and especially David for getting things really accurate.

I'm still tweaking here and there for little things. Just finished installing auto zero and auto tool measurement with new setup (all now with pcb board for good accurate contact), started to screw inserts in all holes of the vacuum table so I can choose what hold down I like to use (shorter jobs the vacuum table, longer ones with clamps), redid the double belt on the X (this time I glued the lower belt, instead of having the belt just folded double and clamped on the ends), measured the remaining backlash and corrected for it in the software, installed another smaller PC with only Windows (jek, what a crap that windows is compared to Apple) and ready to go again.

Will update some pictures etc. soon in the build thread of the Buffalo.

To conclude, I think that the OX is great start in CNC as long as you don't expect to buy yourself a Rolls for the price of a Ford Fiesta. Quality and precision comes with a price. I think that the OX offers a very good value for money that cannot be beat easily by others.

Without OB and this forum I don't think I ever would have started a project like this. Chapeau for all of them.

My 0.02 mm.

 

I am curious about opinions on this. I have always considered the belt driven axes to be the weak point in the OX design. Now that I have mine running, I am actually quite pleased with the performance (though going too fast may make the nema 23's skip), but I am still considering to (at some point) replace the belt drives with ACME threaded rods. Would this improve the OX?

 

Very well said Paul.

Tweakie.

 

Honor to who deserves it!

@hck, threaded rods will most likely improve the OX, especially if you would use anti backlash nuts. For me the double belt system works great though (for now). I'm not into commercial production with this machine, so if cutting takes a bit longer to avoid missed/skipped steps I'll just have another coffee. But then, if I would be into commercial production with CNC, I would look for a commercial production machine to start with. I did see some nice Chinese ones for around $5K with all goodies on it. And I know those machines are good, not as the typical Western gossip machine tries to make you believe. They are sold in the US for 4x that price or more, the 3x extra is for a fancy dudes brand name and everybody suddenly believes it's great stuff.

Correction: 2x extra is for US market protection import duties (so much for US free trade gospel) and the rest for fancy dude brand name.

 

Thanks for the compliments Paul! I really enjoy making the OX parts and custom parts and getting compliments from happy builders.

Chris

 

I know Chris and also how you enjoy it! LOL

 

I know it's probly obvious, but I look and couldn't find it! The videos and website show something that looks very like like a full Sketchup model of the OX, but, I can't find it! Anyone has a link?

 

http://www.openbuilds.com/builds/openbuilds-ox-cnc-machine.341/#openbuilds_files

 

Built my watercooling system for my OX!

 

Hi Guys.. This is my first here ... The past couple months ive been working on my first CNC machine. I went with the OX 1500mm x 750mm with the XPro controller and i've been having a blast with this project so far. I have been trying to work out a few bugs and I almost have all of the worked out, but i've been having some noise out of my Y axis. Check out this video I took this afternoon and let me know what ya think it might be. Thanks for any help guys!

 

I would first check if the steps/mm or steps/inch are set right. Also check your micro step settings (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32). 1/16 should be giving a smoother movement, I guess. Also check (as Gray already pointed out) wether the amps are set right. The belts should be tight enough to not slip over the pulleys, check this too. If it doesn't help, let's look into it further.

 

I am getting ready to place an order and was wondering why the OxCalculator show 68 precision shims. The OX parts list only shows 40.

 

Thanks info guys...

GrayUK: Just pointing me in the direction of my issue possibly being a amps problem helped. My OX is currently on my bench at work and tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to check the amps going to the steppers. I'm going to guess its not enough and will need to be adjusted. I'm also going to check the Xpro settings and jumpers just to make sure all is good... I'll post and let ya know what I find

 

The difference is the number of wheels. Coincidence?

 

The number of wheels is the same. Both BOM shows 28 wheels.

Brian

 

I meant the number of wheels equals the difference in the number of shims (68-40 = 28). Perhaps the OxCalculator uses an extra shim for each wheel?

 

Wheels use shims 40 + 28.....

 

Hey guys! Want to do a cheap little upgrade to your OX? I just did one side yet

 

Nice upgrade dddman!


A little update on the problems I WAS having with my new OX... After messing around with a few settings on my xPRO controller v2, the $01 "step idle delay, msec" was set to 25... As soon as I changed it to 255 my ox came to life... All my step/mm are correct and i'm happy as can be. Now it's just focusing on the little things like wire management, limit switches, and push buttons. I know the attached pic isn't much, but i'm happy lol!