CNC Shark Forum

Just curious to know how the newer units are moving the heat away from the electronics. Is the case closed or ventilated? if there are no fans, do the heat sinks mount against the enclosure to move the heat to the outside? if so, cooling the outside surface where the heat sinks are will help keep th...

I'm not sure what the newest controllers are using, but my older shark pro uses a xylotex driver board. This is the generation of sharks that used Mach3 through a parallel port of a pc. The newer units may be using the NCpod controller to eliminate the need for Mach3, and still be using the xylotex ...

I believe Jerry is using fully supported guide rods, which are much stronger than the plain round rods used on the shark. I retrofitted my shark with these rods and bearings and they are much stronger. I am told that the factory uses this stronger style on the custom "long table" version of the shar...

Over the last year I made a mount for each of these routers, ran them, and measured their runout, etc... Makita 3707FC, Ridgid R2401, Dewalt DWP611, and Bosch Colt The colt I had was one of the units with runout problems due mainly to the collet. (see the tread on Colt runout) Very noisy and low qua...

I might be worth pointing out that at those speeds and feeds it takes a long time to make a part. Yes it is possible, but really really slow... When I was making solid aluminum parts and router mounts for my shark, I was using 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch 6061 plate. A router sized through hole would take a...

I must agree with Garyr6, the shark is not a production machine. In a production environment you need reliability, speed, and accuracy. Inevitably you will want to run the machine at maximum speeds while retaining cut quality. With a light duty machine you may end up missing steps under high loads a...

I have home and limit switches on all 3 axes, but I am using Mach 3 to drive my stepper driver board rather than the ncpod interface used on the newer machines. If the ncpod board connects to a xylotex stepper driver board in your control unit, you can wire limit switches onto the xylotex driver boa...

Although I have not taken my motors apart, they seem to have a bearing system that behaves as if it is spring preloaded and will move axially under pressure. As the shark does not support the leadscrews axially, all the cutting force is taken in the motor bearings. If your motor shaft itself is movi...

Here is a quick update on my colt runout status. I took Bill's technique and touched up the taper of the main shaft of my colt. Ordered 2 replacement OEM colt collets to compare to the collet that came with the router. also ordered the precisebits collet and nut set that gives you the 1/4 standard a...

Hello Bill Thank you for posting this as it is quite eye opening. Since I have an assortment of routers including Colt, I took a sample of my units to get some data to compare. I tried to duplicate your test conditions and used a digital micrometer that reads to the tenthousanth of an inch with an i...