Left X-end Counterweight

The right x-end has a stepper motor: the left x-end has nothing. I made a little box to add weight on the left end (I used some tungsten fishing weights) to balance the x assembly. On my machine this made a big difference. The machine is quieter/smoother moving the carriage up and down and print quality has improved since the left x-end is held down firmly just as much the right.



I love how easy it is to work on the Mendel90. Medel90 rules !

Cool stuff!
Any stl to share? I'd like to try this as well

Well done Garry! I'm going to try this too. See if that gets the squeak out of the nuts in the x-ends when lowering the z-axes.

@kodde
Ask and ye shall receive. Here you go. I made the walls on the open area 2mm thick rather than 1mm. Maybe you can find more sophisticated weight than fishing beads.

@Nilez
Hope some more weight on the left end helps. I clued in on this by using my hand to press down on the left end during raising and lowering the carriage. The difference was immediate.

It goes without saying be VERY GENTLE when tightening the screws so as not to damage the X end itself.

Hi Garry,

Darn! The sound only disappears when I relieve some of the downward pressure on the nut on the right (by very gently pushing up from underneath the right x-end) and not by pushing down on the left. Guess I still need another solution. My printer works great as far as I can tell but that sound when lowering down the first 15 cm....AARGH soo high pitch and loud . LOL Even my friends complained about it sitting in the other room

Maybe the Z smooth rods are not perfectly parallel? To ensure this I loosened the motor side Z clamps from the Dibond and pressed them hard to the right while tightening them. My thinking was the screw holes in the Dibond were as perfectly aligned as possible so start off them. Then loosen the left Z clamps and run the carriage up and down a few times. With carriage at top tighten the top clamp. Run the carriage to the bottom and tighten the bottom z clamp. Loosen all the X rod clamps and x belt before trying to adjust the z rods. Then tighten the other bits you loosened and test.

Good luck!

Thanks Garry,

I've tried to get them parallel a while ago to see if that helped but I certainly didn't do it as elaborate as you're describing so I'm going to try this.

I hope that works. Let us know.

It's weird, the right nut squeaks at the same amount even with all the clamps loose . I think I'll take the machine apart when I move it to another room in a short while to see if something's not right with the seating of the nut or something. Squeak always seems to go away after 15 cm down from the home position though, so it still suggests some misalignment I guess.

Edit:
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Retightening everything didn't solve it either, but a few drops of handy oil seems to have cleared the issue again for a little while from now. The two z threaded rods look kind of blackened with stuff by the way so I guess they could really use some good cleaning also.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2014 03:08PM by Nilez.