I called the laser cutting company today, and they said they haven’t got the spindle mounts back from the machinist.  They apologised and said they would send me all the other parts  right away (they’ll arrive on Friday), and the spindle mounts when they get them, which should be “early next week”.  So, in turn, I apologise to you and ask you to wait just a little more.

Nothing interesting to report, so I thought I’d share this.  I bought some shelves for the garage, and they arrived last week.  I got them on eBay from a seller in the Netherlands, but I didn’t realize they would come from M. C. Escher’s own stock.  Here’s the third and final step of the assembly instructions…

I can only hope that you won’t get the same vibe from the eShapeOko assembly guide.

I called the nice people with the big scary lasers, and they said that all our parts were complete, except for the spindle mount (which requires some additional machining).  They said we would get the parts on Wednesday.

The second batch of eShapeOko kits, due to be delivered the week of 22 October, has sold out.  We have already ordered more parts for a larger batch, and they should be here early November.

For the first batch, we got the packaging materials today.  It’s not going to be a fancy box like the Inventables kit, but we hope that doesn’t matter too much.  We’re still waiting for the laser-cut parts, which were supposed to be ready today.

We got the first batch of replacement MXL pulleys today, and they are excellent.  They seem to be exactly the same as the pulleys from buildlog.net, and slightly better than the ones in our batch 3 Inventables ShapeOko kit (although those are very good too).  The grub screws are metric (M3, with 1.5mm hex sockets).

These will go in the kits ordered before 1am on 2 October.  Orders placed after that will have to wait for the next batch, due the week of 22 October.

The fasteners arrived today!  They all look good, particularly the threaded rods.  We spread them on the table to see what kind of baggies we’d need to pack them all.  That’s all the bolts, nuts*, washers and spacers in the base eShapeOko kit, in the correct quantities, as well as all the V-wheels, bearings, eccentric spacers, smooth idlers, precision washers, plus the Z threaded rod, lead nut, bearing and flexible coupler.

* except the T-slot insertion nuts, which aren’t here yet.

We also got really cute M2 socket screws, little washers and tiny nuts for the limit switches.

So, we got a few more orders and we used up all the MXL pulleys from the first delivery (which is due any day now).  Everyone so far got the dual-Y upgrade — a wise choice, but hard on our pulley supply.  The next shipment of MXL pulleys arrives around the 22nd of October, so if you order now, that’s when your kit will ship.  Orders already placed aren’t affected.  Sorry for the delay, but we’d rather make you wait a week than give you any of the crooked pulleys, even though we have plenty of those.

You can now order the eShapeOko with a dual X rail!  All the V-wheels, eccentric spacers, bolts, washers and nylon spacers needed to build either the standard single X or the dual X will be included in the kit, as well as two pieces of MakerSlide for the X axis instead of one.  If you already have some MakerSlide, or if you plan to build a wider machine (so a 375mm piece of MakerSlide would not be useful to you anyway), you can get everything for the dual X except the extra piece of MakerSlide, and save £5.

The two rails can be bolted together, but you need your own fixings for that.  It doesn’t make much of a difference at the stock X length, but it can be useful if you are building a wider machine.

If you have already paid for your eShapeOko kit but you’d like to add the dual X upgrade, please email us (there’s a link at the bottom of every page in the store).

The updated BOM is up.

I’ve managed to order good toothed pulleys.  Unfortunately, the quantity I needed was not in stock.  What they had will be enough for the pre-orders so far, and few more orders after that, so we’re good for now.  Once those run out, any further kits ordered may have to wait until around the 22nd of October.