Hello ! First time here so here we go! I have a Fox Alien 4040XE, bought about 8 mths. ago and have found it is way under built. I want to transform it with Openbuilds products. For now, I need to rebuild the gantry with 2080 1000mm length and eventually the Y axis later. I'm just not sure of all the parts I'll need and would like help sorting this out. I thought I could call and have a sales agent put a package together but cant seem to find a phone #. Any suggestion's ? I Love these products. I want to recreate my XE into the LEAD 1010. Thanks in advance ! I really want to get this started.
Our recommendation for a custom machine build like this would be to pull the existing machine into CAD, import our parts from our libraries OpenBuilds | 3D Warehouse or OpenBuilds® | GrabCAD and construct your modifications in CAD - that will allow you to check all the fits, and plan a BOM Might be a lot easier to order a 1010 Kit, and then sell off the old machine as-is on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist etc - someone will be interested in a machine, almost no one will be interested in a box of leftovers. If you factor in the time and effort and possibility of needing custom plates machined and things that just doesn't fit together in a mashup - it starts to make sense
Thank you Peter ! That would be my First choice but finance's wont allow that, shot my wad on this XE so now I'm kinda stuck with it. Just looking at the LEAD 1010 makes my heart pound. I am retired now and have a tendency to rebuild everything I buy so no problem there, I live for this stuff ! lol
Good plan then - sorry we can't be of more direct help (as we don't know your machine) but if you have the ability, drive and patience to work through it you should be good
Ordinarilly no, we have online portals here and at support.openbuilds.com One has to of course consider what counts as Support (shipping, order, payment, warranty, tech support) and what counts as community interaction (asking friendly volunteer folks to review your Plans, give advice etc) and accordingly decide if you are to contact Customer Support, or discuss the new project here on the Forum. A customized 3rd party machine would be the Forum
Your easiest bet to get started - if the y gantry plates have holes based on 20 mm spacing- would be to buy the 1000 mm C-Beam® XLarge Linear Actuator Bundle for the x axis and either a 250mm or 500 mm for the z axis. Then a couple of pieces of 2080 vslot for that can be mounted on your existing Y axis plates if the hole pattern works. Or, get the High Z Mod for Lead 1010 CNC and you will get almost all you need.
