Ready to bootstrap

After a bunch of work to stiffen everything , it is ready to start cutting aluminum to attach my makerslides to my 50mm by 100mm extrusion for the x-axis. 

Next purchase list

This is what I'm going to need to stiffen the X axis, plus a few parts to broaden out the table.

One 25-5010, 1800mm long.
Four 25-2575 1830mm long
eight 25-4113 4-hole corner inside brackets to join the 25-2550s.
thirty-two bolt assemblies (75-3404 m6 x 10mm w economy t-nut) to tie in the 25-4113

To stiffen the vertical legs, which are wobbling a bit when we move the table around we'll add joiner plates on the middle legs to see if it helps.
2 25-4165 8-hole joining plates
sixteen bolt assemblies (75-3404 m6 x 10mm w economy t-nut)

six 25-4132 2 hole inside gusset corner brackets (2 for the midspan and 4 for the corners)
twelve bolt assemblies (75-3404 m6 x 10mm w economy t-nut)

When we switch out to larger motor mount plates, we'll also need screws that are .15 inches (4mm) longer (because the motor mount will be .25 inches thick, not 12 gauge.  That works out to:
four M5 x 34mm Button Head Cap Screws
eight M5 x 24mm Button Head Cap Screws

We'll also need to extend the carriage for the Y-axis, but this is enough for one night.

How's that for stupid?

Last night I got most of the new motors hooked up:

Naturally, the next thing I did was to hook up my gShield to verify that the motors would turn when commanded to do so.

But it didn't!  Even though all of the wiring looked good for the Y axis motor.  There was a brief sound every time I clicked, but no motion.  I double checked on the inventables website that I could drive my motors with the gShield, and sure enough I could.

This evening I took a look at it again.

I'd switched axis in my head.  The brief sound I'd heard was the other axis's motor.

Sigh.

It made buying a terminal block at Radio Shack, where you have to wrap the wires around the screws rather than sandwiching them between plates, look relatively minor.