Assembly instructions / diagrams

[William Adams]

I've been working on the directions for assembling the new ShapeOko 2 (a hobby-level, open source CNC machine which can be used as a mill/router or 3D printer or be fitted out w/ a drag knife, &c.) for a while now, and have recently begun up-dating the diagrams so as to make them interactive, and to make them function better on tablets w/ high resolution displays and which have browsers which support zooming in / magnification.

The files are on docs.shapeoko.com --- thus far I've finished the diagrams for Wheels & Idlers and Carriages, and have begun on the Z-axis.

Unfortunately, the file sizes have been increasing quite a bit (I'm using Inkscape and publishing the files as SVGs) and this should be dealt w/ by putting them on a server we have more control over and using SVGZ compressed files, but I was curious as to what people thought of the idea of making the diagrams interactive.

Here are links to the ones which are done thus far:

The first two are pretty simple:
http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPi...203-02-100.svg
http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPi...197-02-100.svg

The next two are variations on a theme:
http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPi...S20021-100.svg (arguably this one should come first, since the second adds parts)
http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPi...S20022-100.svg

And it's in the Z-axis that the file sizes really ratchet up:
http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPi...S20029-100.svg (warning ~15MB)
http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPi...S20028-100.svg

The diagrams became an issue 'cause some of the new purchasers haven't been as mechanically inclined in the past, so weren't able to visualize ``missing'' hex nuts, washers and other hardware.

You can see a full page on the ShapeOko 2 in the April _Popular Mechanics_ if you're not inclined to click on the links.

Anyway, I was curious as to what other CNC machines do for assembly instructions and whether or no people think this sort of thing helps or not, or if anyone has any suggestions as to how they might be further improved upon.

[Art Mann]

I bought a commercial CNC router but the kit machine I almost bought included nothing but assembly drawings and a parts list. There were no assembly instructions. If you really want to help people be successful building your machine, I think the best way to do that is with well produced and tightly edited videos. The amateur productions you see on Youtube are waaaaay too long for the information content and are jumpy and poorly produced. The highlighting you are using in the samples above could be effective too.

[William Adams]

There are a couple of assembly videos, but I don't have the patience, software, inclination or hardware for that (my main machine won't even play videos when booted into Windows).

There are compleat assembly instructions at http://docs.shapeoko.com

[Art Mann]

I went and looked at the assembly instructions and I have to say they are way better than average. The unit also seems pretty simple to build and calibrate compared to the larger commercial grade kits.

[William Adams]

Thanks!

If anyone has any suggestions for improvements or other comments, I'd be grateful.