New printer - first part

This is one of my Y carriage parts for the printer I'm planning. It's a printed part bolted to an Open Builds spec aluminium gantry plate. The plate runs on Open Builds 40 x 20 V slot making a very nice linear guide. The thing will take a pair of parallel V slot 20 x 20 rails which will be the X axis guides. Slung in between them will be the Diamond hot end (initially, but that may change in the future).

It was printed on my ageing, creaking, Mendel variant at a fast(ish) speed and 0.3mm layer height so the surface finish isn't too clever but it's dimensionally spot on and pretty strong (50% infill). The 4 wheels are Open Builds Delrin wheels, each fitted with twin bearings. 2 of them have fixed spacers, the other two have eccentric spacers to allow adjustment. This printer is initially being designed as a CoreXY but if it doesn't work out, I'll change it to a simple Cartesian. So, for now it has a pair if Open Builds twin bearing smooth idlers, mounted one above the other in the centre so that the belts will run at different heights but very close to the centre line of the X carriage. The idler shaft is supported top and bottom so it won't bend with belt tension.

I have to say that so far, I'm loving this V slot stuff. It's a bit expensive but you can create very nice linear guides with no play but silky smooth action. I fitted this Y carriage part to a 1 metre length of 20x40 V slot then lifted one end of the rail. At less than 20 degrees, the carriage moved and then travelled the full length with no external force applied.

I might redesign this in the future to see if I can do away with the aluminium gantry plate to save a bit of weight.

V slot is great stuff. my whole printer is made of the stuff and I couldn't be more happy with it really. The plates arn't too heavy, they weigh in around 74g each. I'm planning on chopping a few of mine up to lower the weight as I've just redesigned the extruder carriage to run on 2060 rather than 2080 v slot.

Another fan Mine too will be made from V slot - not just the X and Y axes. It makes mounting things and running cables so much easier even if you don't need the Vee as guide. I'm waiting for the bulk of my extrusion to arrive. I'm in the UK but it was considerably cheaper for me to buy it from Portugal.

I'm in the UK as well. I opted for ooznest, as actually once you add in the shipping ratrig is not really cheaper I found. Also, they don't stock the 2080 extrusion I needed for my machine. The wheels I ordered from aliexpress, otherwise they would have been the highest cost in my machine. I got 20 wheels for £20 (including shims, screws, lock nuts and bearings).

I've recently ordered some wheels from ooznest so I could compare them for quality. The official wheels look better made, but they have the same toughness and shape so I believe there will be no loss of quality. The bearings however are very well made, much better than the cheap ones from china. they lock up less and are much smoother.

I found the opposite with RatRig when I compared prices. Posted this - [forums.reprap.org]. Delivery for a pile of stuff was only 25 Euros (about £20) which is less than what Ooznest charged me for 4 off 1m lengths of 20 x 40. They don't stock 20 x80 though as you rightly say. It could well be that prices fluctuate from country to country and from time to time, so of course it's always best to shop around.

I bought all my wheel kits (22 in my case), gantry plates and idlers from both Ooznest and Robocutters (they can sometimes be a bit cheaper than Ooznest) before I discovered RatRig (b*gger) Admittedly they were a lot more expensive than the Chinese variety but personally, I don't trust Chinese bearings. But at £1.00 each for a wheel kit, you could always throw away the Chinese bearings, replace them with some decent ones and still be quids in. Looks like you picked up a bargain.

Ooznest on Ebay is handy if you just want (say) a few spacers or screws or some such. Delivery is free and very quick.

Since no one else has said it, nice work man. Judging by your printed parts an upgrade may not be needed. Nice attention to detail.

Quote
elwood127
Since no one else has said it, nice work man. Judging by your printed parts an upgrade may not be needed. Nice attention to detail.

Why thank you kind Sir. An upgrade is definitely needed though. Z homing is done via a modulated probe and I have to recalibrate this pretty much every time I want to print something. The bed is saddle shaped with 4 point mounting so I have to rely on bed compensation. The whole thing wobbles about and flexes alarmingly. It's a constant source of amazement to me that it prints anything to the dimensional accuracy that it does. I need a bigger build volume too.

I've printed pretty much all the rest of the parts. I hadn't posted them because I didn't think anyone was interested. Maybe I will now.

I've been following, For parts printed on a creaking machine they look nice n smooth, is it ABS?
Be nice to see if there is any improvement on the new machine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2016 11:53AM by MechaBits.

Quote
MechaBits
I've been following, For parts printed on a creaking machine they look nice n smooth, is it ABS?
Be nice to see if there is any improvement on the new machine.

No it's just bog standard PLA. 0.5mm nozzle, 0.3mm layer height, 50% infill for these parts which need to be strong, 60mm/sec, perimeters and top/bottom layers at 75% speed. Diamond hot end but only working as a single colour (i.e single filament feed through one extruder).

I really don't know whether to post the build progress or not.

i'll be trying a larger nozzle on next build for a little extra speed, but surprised lines aren't more visible(though thinking about it for a bit, the anisotropy would be smoother with fatter lines), but still the parts look fluid (as if glazed) but also square.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2016 11:38AM by MechaBits.