I am curious about others’ experiences with quality control, regarding the 8020 components in the machine kits. Did you have problems? What did Avid do to fix them?
The Benchtop Pro is unique - in a good way - among its peers on the market. On paper, it ticks a lot of the right boxes and presents a good blank canvas for adding whatever control and control hardware you like. That’s why I bought mine, and then another when I decided to special order a 3x2 configuration instead of the standard 2x3.
Frankly, the design is geometrically overconstrained. Two different subassemblies compete to control the width of the machine, and any deviation from theoretically perfect form in the 8020 extrusions will cause problems. If special attention is paid to the squareness and length of the cuts on the 8020 extrusions, then these problems can be minor or inconsequential, or even nonexistent. I was willing to accept this.
However, my experience with the current machine is that 8020 doesn’t seem to be providing this kind of special attention, and Avid hasn’t noticed. After my laughably out of square first shipment, I just received replacements that had been double checked by Avid. The second shipment was WORSE than the first!
The axis slides are the whole reason to buy this machine, and so I am returning just the 8020 extrusion components to Avid. I have some ideas about how to build this machine with replacement materials not from 8020, but I’d like to get feedback about whether it is worth pursuing this at all. It feels like I’m fighting fatalism to try to make this work. Should I just walk away before I throw more money at it?
While I agree that the larger routers can accommodate reasonable tolerances in the materials they are made from, the same can’t be said for the Benchtop Pro. The L&R junctions between the 80x160 gantry extrusion and the risers are arguably the most important geometric relationship of the machine, and they simply MUST be square for the machine to function properly. The gantry extrusion’s length is also in direct competition with the length of the cross members under the table. Because their mating parts cinch up to these components’ faces, the squareness of the cuts is paramount. This is the special consideration I was talking about above.
It is not accounted for in the design, which I explained very clearly above.
The larger machines have a completely different gantry design, for which reasonable deviations can be accommodated. Not so with the Benchtop Pro.
The topic of this thread is about quality control. Cutting a part square is not hard, and I am disappointed in 8020 for failing to do this - but this failure point is just not acceptable in the Benchtop Pro, which is overconstrained and has zero tolerance for any deviation from perfect form.
I read your link and I have reread your statements.
Again, it really is “this simple.”
Assemble the machine. Make sure you use the correct torque amount and a torquing pattern. You can search “torque” and find the earlier discussions on this topic. 8020 specifies these values and those links are in the various topics.
Remember that precision preloaded bearings will not move without constant force unlike a skateboard (this was an earlier misunderstanding you will also probably have heightened stress over).
Do follow the directions as faithfully as you can. It’s understood you will makes mistakes along the way, that is actually “designed into the system” just like the extruded aluminum imperfections are.
You don’t have a problem until you can show me you have a problem.
If you can show me your problem I can either tell you how to tune, adjust or fix it or somebody else will know more on that specific topic.
But throwing your hands up and walking away because you have never worked with 8020 before and somehow it seems inferior to you will not move this conversation forwards.
I don’t know a single person that will say that the published numbers are not true. They will complain about ringing or vibration or uneven wear but the machines get the numbers that are published.
So yes, it is as simple as assemble the machine. Then if it’s not giving you the numbers we can help you.
We cannot help you if the machine is still laying around as parts.
Lastly, I really hope you do not have that thing in an apartment. Those photos are troublesome because these things are really loud. Your next door neighbors are not going to be happy with you
I was going to chip in and say that nearly all the 8020 I got was as correctly made as I could measure (one piece was dented in shipment, easily fixed). I was also going to add that my machine went together just fine, and runs as precisely as advertised, with only a small bit of shimming to take out the last little bits. I was going to mention that the Avid machines are not top of the line machines - you’re paying for 8020 quality, not cast iron, and you get 8020 results, not micrometers. I would have mentioned how horrible my plywood cnc machine was despite getting relatively good results from it, and how much better my Avid machine is.
But given your hostility, I think I’ll keep my help to myself
Literally at the top of the post I said I was returning the 8020 components. I decided to do so after the second batch was worse than the first. I was, and I still am, curious about others’ experiences with quality control.
I have no plans to assemble a machine out of clearly flawed components with the expectation it will magically produce a square machine.
I have no hostility at all. Just frustration.
Thanks for your input.
EDIT: @subnoize deleted most of his comments so it looks like I’m talking to myself.
We love it when users interact and support each other. That’s why we made this forum! When it comes to issues like this that are warranty issues peer-to-peer support has the potential to be less than helpful. In fact, we don’t encourage people to post warranty issues here:
While I recognize the frustration and passion in this thread, the most productive thing is to let our customer service team deal with this, and that’s what happening right now.
