Last night was exciting--I finally got my MendelMax wired up and plugged in, and the firmware loaded up. After a couple of false starts (mainly due to the motors being plugged in backwards, and the Z motors being plugged in opposite to each other), I was able to verify that all of the linear motion was working as expected.
With one caveat.
Here's my X axis setup:
X carriage: [
www.thingiverse.com]
X ends: [
www.thingiverse.com]
The carriage seems to move fairly well for about 80% of the length of the rods, but when I get to either end of the travel, the whole thing binds up and I can't move it by hand. When the motor engages at that position, it fails to move the carriage as well, with a horrible racket to boot.
I used my digital caliper to verify that the distance between the 8mm rods was consistent, or at least as close as I could get to an accurate measurement with the X belt in the way. It seems very odd to me that I'd be getting binding like this just on the ends.
Before I rip the entire X axis apart, is there something obvious that I might be missing? This is the last piece of the puzzle before I actually put filament in the thing, and I want to make sure I don't destroy my stepper motors.
