Aligning guide carriages

Published by Emelie Neckman, 2024-09-20

Just like with the rails, carriages have a high-precision reference surface used for alignment. Carriages generally have one reference surface you can use to align the top plate in your setup.

It’s usually easy to spot which side is the reference—it’s located on a protruding tab and is typically ground and shiny.

There are three ways to mount a guide carriage:

1. Mount the carriage directly, without using a reference edge on the top plate
2. Use one reference edge on the top plate to align the carriages
3. Use one reference edge plus clamps that press the carriages against the edge

In setups with two rails and four carriages, for example, you can either place reference edges only on the carriages of one rail or on both—depending on the application.
We’ll return to this topic in a later post.

Here’s a video on the topic featuring Carry Lindholm from Bosch Rexroth: