Hi,

Since I returned from holiday, I have been working on the custom part kits for the LAYZOR. Finally I can show off some of the progress I made.

The kits will be made available in batches of 10, so thats the number of individual pieces I’m working towards.

First up: turning down some M8 bolts/threaded rod in order to accept 5mm pulleys for the adjustable Z. In order not to damage the threads, I used a technique I came up with a few months back: using vinyl locknuts to center and chuck the screws. Getting those vinyl locknuts on and off by hand was getting tedious really fast, so I epoxied a hex-wrench in my workbench to speed up the process with a power drill. The video below will probably do a better job explaining the basic idea.

I bought this CNC lathe a whole while back, but this is the first time I’ve used it since converting to Mach3. It performed wonderfully, although there was a small learning curve.

It took me a whole lot of hours on the lathe, but the first batch of these adjustable Z screws is finally ready. Well, technically there’s one more bolt to do for the jog wheel (x 10), but those are still making their way to me. In the meantime, I also had the 2mm steel brackets lasercut by a local company. They were quite expensive because of the small batch size, but they are so much more rigid than my aluminium ones, so all things considered they are definitely worth the price!

I will throw them in my vibrating tumbler for a while for deburring and making a better surface finish.

Next thing on the list is the jog wheel. Back when I made mine, I did it on the CNC router. This time around, I’ll be using the lathe because it will be much quicker. I’m still working on the gcode for those, but I already cut some discs off my stock so expect them not to take too long.

That’s where I’m at right now. I hope to release the kits in the following weeks. It kind of depends on when I get the last bolts in the mail.

Cheers!