The Meticulous Z-Axis

Gotcha. Wish I had that template before I put wood screws in mine lmfao Do you have that in a to-scale pdf by chance?

Posts 182/183/192 have info on @Shootquinn printable design for the leadscrew nut bracket. Was just looking for it myself and had a heck of a time finding it in this thread!

Along these lines, I noticed there’s quite a bit of slop with the nut/leadscrew that came in the linear rail kit which might be a problem for many of my projects. Found a domestic supplier and ordered an anti-backlash nut from Zyltech in Houston; hopefully it is a drop-in replacement wrt mounting holes.

2 Likes

Thank You @btodcox!

1 Like

I put all of the parts I messed with in one place.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3122858

I’ve been laying low (busy enough with other projects and school) but you guys haven’t heard the last of me! Last I checked my sled even had printed gussets. Now I have a 20" x 20" printer so I was thinking of printing a whole sled. :rofl:

2 Likes

Holy crap that’s a huge printer!!! I was trying to get mine working again, and it was cheaper to just buy a new one. So I got 2 Anet E10’s arriving Monday with about 12 rolls of PLA+ :joy::rofl::joy::rofl:

I do hope you print a sled, I’d LOVE to see that!

Thanks for the link! I saved it and will begin on it after I print all the E10 upgrades!

2 Likes

I have been looking at spindles, but haven’t decided on one yet. Though that’s kinda of the point, I want to be able to swap out and try different options.

My first attempt will be to use threaded inserts in the carriage and bolt on the mount (could bolt right though the carriage, if the bolt pattern doesn’t interfere with any of the hardware on the back). Alignment will probably be biggest issue. Easiest would probably be to create different shims to align spindles/routers with the center of the sled. Though bolting the whole z axis onto the sled might provide the greatest flexibility, it would also make it easier to use the original sled. The holes could be slotted for aligning the router with center.

Pretty sure I will have some time next week to start modeling all this in Fusion.

Templates are in the community garden page, under 2D CAD drawings. Unfortunately, because the sled and spine are so big they need a D sized page (24"x36") to fit them. I tried to fit the spine onto an 11" x 17" by itself but it would need to be split between two pages.

I (think) I noticed this as well, but only when I put a dial indicator on the carriage. I looked into one of those pre-loaded nuts as well, but at the time wasn’t sure if it was necessary. I haven’t heard any other reports of people having trouble with backlash, but as you mentioned, it’s entirely possible you need better precision there than the typical end user.

Now that I would like to see! Also, that’s a pretty awesome printer. I think the Stratasys printers we have at work might be around that print volume, but I don’t remember off the top of my head.

Thanks for the Thingiverse link. I’m thinking I will pull the STL files and put them in the Community Garden page so they’re all there. The only problem I could think of there is the guide block mounting holes on the carriage plate. Did that ever get fixed? I could always get that squared away real quick before uploading the STL.

I’m no fortune teller, but I see a lot of printing in your future! I still need to go through my pile o’ filament and make it into useful things. Most of it’s ABS, though, and I’m not sure if it’s been exposed to too much moisture or not.

I like where you’re going with this. I had considered going that route after I assembled mine and realized that the dust chute gets locked into the sled as soon as the Z axis gets glued down. I don’t trust threaded inserts going into the edge of plywood, but if you made a base ā€œplateā€ that solve that issue. Just have to make sure that clears the dust chute.

Although, somewhere around here I saw somebody mount the dust chute so it angles upwards, like at the 2 o’clock position. Might be a good idea as well.

1 Like

I totally agree, I would not trust threaded inserts into the edge of plywood either. I am going to attempt putting the inserts into the sled and designing a base plate for the z axis that bolts to the sled but still allows dust collection though the bottom.

A little more progress! Only thing I’m waiting on now is my 3D printers to come in so I can print that leadscrew nut holder. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to print new router clamps too. Thanks @MeticulousMaynard for an awesome design, and top notch engineering!

2 Likes

with the maslow Z axis, you can load the nut in one direction (bungee or
equivalent) rather than going with a more complex way of dealing with backlash.

David Lang

I think when I get done with this build, I may take it somewhere and have flames airbrushed on the sled and gussets. Make it look like it’s moving faster! :joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl:

6 Likes

I never fixed the block spacing issue because I had no confidence in the blocks I received.

What’s the hole spacing supposed to be?

I can make that change and also put my F360 archive on thingiverse. I’m sure it’s a mess though.

1 Like

I’m not at my shop to verify the actual measurements for the hole spacing, but I can tell you if you look at the cad files in the Meticulous Z Axis download, those holes are spot on for the rail kit listed in the BOM. I used them as a template to drill my holes by hand, and they were perfect.

I whipped this up in like 10 minutes just from the cad files @MeticulousMaynard created.

I thought about rounding it all, and making it look sleek, but your design is already perfect so not trying to step on toes here at all.

1 Like

My model dimensions match the ones in MeticulousSled_Nested.dxf. I may have bought or received the wrong blocks. This is what I meant about brain power though. :stuck_out_tongue:

Autodesk Fusion360 file added to thingiverse. License changed to public domain dedication (I hope this works with whatever license you selected, Bryan?)

Also I couldn’t find the front parts of the clamps in Fusion. No idea where those are. The STLs look good though.

I’m weak on documentation and follow-through. Luckily Bryan knocks those two out of the park!

edit: I don’t know if I said it or not but I’m supposed to be doing Chemistry homework on the weekends so I can’t spend mental horsepower trying to unravel Chinese supply chain / CAD version conflict issues. I KNOW BETTER, ASK ME HOW LOL

1 Like

Oh ok! Perfect then! Your model SHOULD actually match the linear set listed in the BOM then. I say that because the link to the linear set in the BOM is what I purchased, and the holes lined up to the pillow blocks, the bearing blocks and the rod holders perfectly! I can at least verify that much for ya. However, I’m sure there’s still a chance that if you order from that link, that you might still get blocks that don’t line up right. call it a gut feeling.

And I’m now curious about the ā€˜how’ you know better than try to unravel the Chinese Supply chain / CAD version conflicts lmfao

1 Like

At work we are constantly having stuff fabbed to old CAD models (even ones I swear that I deleted) and I swear that the Chinese have figured out (no matter what they send me) that I will never return anything. I throw the bad stuff straight into the garbage can so I don’t have to waste any time looking at it ever again. Probably should have tossed those blocks and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation! :stuck_out_tongue:

The stuff at work is like a running joke, we will have a form block designed by one guy show up, and the part flat pattern that fits the other guys block get cut out a few hours later. Then when we want to make a change, the 2nd guys block will get cut out that time instead of the one we updated to get reworked. It is really great when that happens when I’m training someone, because those situations are so FUBAR that a new person would never be able to connect all the dots (people have a hard time believing that things can be that screwed up, like they can’t process it as true).

1 Like

HAHA Man, sounds like we work for the same company!

1 Like

Does your company have planes falling out of the sky and the CEO heading to congress on Tuesday?? :sweat_smile::rofl:

I’m just going to keep going to school, the rest is just a good show.

4 Likes

does anyone have a Fusion file with the updated style ring in it? everything that i can find on the community garden has the ring with the end L brackets facing in the wrong direction. the picture @MeticulousMaynard has on the community garden has the correct 3D ring in the picture. is there any way that can be shared? thank you.

@Daniel_Papesca: I’m confused. Are you referring to this link in the instructions? The ring is the same there as the one in the picture.

Is there a 360 archive file in the zip somewhere? I’m not seeing on in the directories.