Bought a TechZone Huxley kit a while ago

And I'm actually just about to start building it. I moved, stuff came up, etc. Anyways, from this forum it seems like it will be quite the journey to get this thing working. Any advice? Would it be better to just go at it and tackle the problems as they come, or are there like specific things I should prepare for? Someone mentioned using the parts and others to build a prusa...I hope it doesn't come to that but if so, I just really want to get this thing built.


Thanks in advance!

In my kit there were many faulty and some missing parts, but it is difficult to see that before you are building it.
Anyhow I would do it again.....

Hi,

I'm a full time student in computer engineering so I don't have a ton of time to work, but I have been having a blast putting in a few hours here and there. I also happen to have a friend in class that has a Thing-O-Matic, so I've been able to replace all the missing/faulty printed pieces so far. I've finished the frame and x-axis, but ran into some trouble today building the y-axis.

http://reprap.org/wiki/HuxleyYAxis

To build the z-180 and z-360 portions, you need to place a "captive nut", basically heating up a nut, and sliding it horizontally into a slot so that it will not move. The problem is that they need to be perfectly aligned with the perpendicular hole so that they can be screwed into. When placing them, they looked fine by eyesight, but only about half were able to screw in without problem. Do you guys have a method for doing this? I was thinking maybe to screw in a cap bolt while the nut is still hot, but you wouldn't want the plastic to melt the bolt in place I guess.

One other problem I've had is that I accidentally broke a corner of the frog plate, as shown in the image. The piece seems pretty secure in that position, but should I do something to fix it? Possibly place a large washer on top?

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

If your captive nut is not well aligned, you might slide an hot iron tip in it, the same way you would screw the bolt in, and push it gently to correct its orientation. Just try to avoid touching the plastic with the iron.
It's sometimes difficult and can be messy with molten plastic yes.

For your frog plate yup it looks still ok, you can still add a larger washer if you have one available.


But you probably have gone longer on your setup since you posted that

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Thanks, I did manage to get all the nuts in place, only ruined two parts! I have gotten a bit further since then, but became frustrated when I realized that there would not be enough M3 hardware to finish installing the Z-axis. So, after searching locally, I finally found a great place online to order from and I should have plenty of extra nuts and bolts Monday. Thanks again for the advice!