Excess smooth rods

Hi I have been recentley been building my first reprap Prusa. So far I have completed the frame and am now about to build the extruder cold end. whilst looking at the plans I have found that I need a small amount of smooth rod, I have used all my smooth rod up and want to try avoided buying another meter length.
Looking at the Prusa design it seem that there is an excess amount of smooth rod sticking out of the side of the X axis.
Can anyone tell me if there is a use for this excess rod on the X asis, or is it ok to trim it down?

Image of what I am talking about

As long as it's long enough, and unless you want to use it to mount a fan or some decorations, no, there's no need for the excess rod.

On the other hand, it doesn't hurt either, does it? I am happy I didn't cut off the excess on (one of) my printers, as I have to ability to add some upgrades if I'd like.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

You can cut it. It's vestigial.

I like to mount things on the excess x rod. I put spare extruder carriage assemblies there.

you don't need smooth rod for the idle part of extruder, you can use threaded rod, or cut off a piece of m8 bolt.