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Travis Reese
05-08-2016, 8:52 PM
I decided to check my alignment recently. It was off and I started going through the typical procedures to align everything. I never could quite get it right and figured it was good enough. I did everything starting with mirror #1 and working my way down the chain. Tonight for the first time after watching some of Russ' youtube videos I decided to actually pull the machine away from the wall and take a look at the tube and its mounting. I was quite frankly shocked. I would expect the tube to be aligned parallel to the case and so presumably parallel to the rails. It was so far from parallel that it was immediately obvious without even beginning to take measurements.

With a set of calipers I was able to determine that near the output end of the tube the tube was 82mm from the case and at the other end it was 90mm from the case. The tube sets on brackets which bolt to a set of slots. Just looking at where the brackets were each mounted to the slots you could see the 8mm difference.

I then decided to check how level the tube was by measuring from the top of the tube to where the mounting brackets attach to the case. At the front it's 124mm and the rear 116 mm. Again off by 8 mm. This was also visibly evident by looking at the vertical adjustment of each of the mounts. It's visually about 8mm difference.

No wonder I've had such fits trying to get things aligned.