What you’ll want before starting this:
- Metric Allen keys (5mm, 5mm, 2.5mm, and 2mm)
- A new wire for grounding the gantry
- Banana plug from the ground wire
- A bowl or dish or something to put all the screws in
- Masking tape and a marker for labeling wires (or a label maker)
- If you’re upgrading your spindle to a water-cooled spindle or ATC spindle, you’ll want bigger drag chains. Things are pretty tight with the stock Shapeoko drag chains.
Make sure you read through all of this at least twice. If something isn’t clear, reply or DM me and I’ll update this document and get you an answer.
- Turn off everything and unplug it from the wall power.
- Unplug everything that you can unplug on the Shapeoko.
- Remove the covers on either end of the gantry.
- Remove the connection from the spindle to the VFD.
- Remove the spindle from the spindle mounting plate.
- Remove the spindle mount plate from the Z-axis.
- Loosen the upper half of the spider coupling. This includes both the capped screw that hold the coupling together as well as the grub screw that puts pressure on the motor shaft.
- Remove the four screws attaching the stepper motor to the spindle mount plate.
- Remove the stepper motor.
- Remove the spider coupling.
N.B. This is a great time to lubricate the linear bearings. See “Linear Motion Guide Maintenance” at Carbide3d’s CNC Machine Maintenance.
- Remove and replace the Z-axis limit switch.
Be careful here - it’s pretty easy to smush the screws into the screw slots if you’re not paying attention.
This process mostly repeats itself for the other steppers, so when I say “remove the X stepper”, just scroll back up here and re-read it.
At this point, you need to decide how you will route all your cabling. If you are also installing a water cooled spindle or an ATC, you should definitely upgrade your drag chains.
- Remove all screws holding both drag chains on the gantry.
- Remove the X-axis limit switch.
- Remove the X-axis stepper motor. This is just like the above.
- Check for slop in your X-axis - slide the Z-axis plate back and forth by hand.
If you do have slop, you can tighten the nut on the right side of the ball screw. This is located just to the left of the spider coupling. I was able to tighten this by hand from the front of the machine. If you really want to tighten it all the way you’ll need to remove the other half of the spider-coupling. - Remove both Y-axis motors and limit switches.
N.B. Right now you should an empty shell of a CNC machine. If you want to install 30mm risers or a new gantry LED, now is a great time to do that. This is the lightest your gantry is going to be unless you take the machine apart.
Decision Time
Think about answers to the following questions:
- Where will the Masso Touch go?
- Where will the VFD sit?
- Where will power supply go?
- How will you route power and sensors?
Install the new steppers. This process is mostly the same for all of them. The only difference is that the Z-axis has a brake on it, so you will need to rotate the stepper motor if you need to move the stepper mounting plate.
- Put the spider coupling on the new stepper.
- Tighten the screws on the spider coupling most of the way.
- Put the new stepper in place.
- Align the spider coupling on the new stepper with the other half of the spider coupling.
- Slide the stepper in to place.
- Make sure everything is most of the way seated. The screws that hold the stepper motor on will pull the spider coupling fully closed.
- Tighten both screws on the spider coupling.
- Z-axis only: Make sure you have access to the four screws you removed to take the z-axis plate off the gantry. If not, you can rotate the stepper motor to raise/lower the plate.
- Put the four stepper motor screws in place.
- Tighten the stepper motor screws.
- Install the Z-plate on the machine.
- Install all remaining steppers (X, Y1, Y2).
- Remove wiring from the drag chains.
- Run all Z-axis cabling through the drag chains on the left of the machine (when looking at it from the front).
- I removed the gantry drag chain that goes to the right of the machine - there’s nothing coming off the gantry that needs it.
- Make a new ground wire and attach it to the grounding block on the right rear of the machine.
- Run the X-axis stepper and limit switch cabling as well as the ground wire up the right drag chain.
- Connect everything
Once you’ve got the machine wired up, you’ll need to teach the Masso about distances. Follow the axis motor calibration instructions. The further you can move the axis you’re calibrating, the more accurate the calibration will be.
For the X-axis and Y-axis, I put a 15-degree v-bit on the machine and lowered it to just above the bed. I then placed a meter stick up against the flat of the v-bit and ensured it was parallel to the axis that I was calibrating. I then raised the v-bit and jogged it one meter exactly (4x reading glasses help here).
For the Z-axis, I used a pair of 1-2-3 blocks and moved the Z-axis by 3 inches.
N.B. If you’ve been previously using this VFD with a Carbide3d machine, you’ll need to change P2.0.15 from 5V to 10V (Thanks @Chris Spindle Speed Doubled - #2 by Chris)
Happy to help out! There’s a lot going on over there at PwnCNC and I figure if I can help out by documenting the process (which I was already going to do for myself), then it makes sense to document and share so we can all make it better.