More Upgrades – X axis Linear Rails

Finally got a few hours over Christmas to knock up the X axis linear rails upgrade for the printer.

Printer seems to run nicely and i’ve printed a few small things….I’ll work on quantifying any improvements next as, right now it only ‘seems’ better, and print quality improvements are really marginal. The biggest difference was on the Y axis bed, and I suspect there are now easy further improvements to be had………

Photos Below

Side view showing the new Carriage (designed by someone else)

The new idler mount – this was needed as existing thingverse ones don’t have space for the rail at the top

Top down view of the new rail carriage

side view of the new idler and it’s tension adjustment screws

first signs of life…

Look at that sliky smooth motion!…Give it a shove and it keeps on going…a bit at least.

Certainly , there’s less friction than the old wheels!

 

MGN12H rails small tweaks to perfect…

Ok, the rails are on and working a treat, kind of…

The right angled fittings I purchased to secure the 20×20 extrusion to the 40×40 have some little tabs on them, I can’t find any readily available way of securely making this connection with off the shelf parts so i’ll have to grind down one side’s tabs…

The slight amount of pressure this tab is putting on the extruision is enough to twist it and stop the MGN rails from running smoothly!

A secure 20×20 extrusion. But slightly twisted due to the small lump

View from below…if I add a little drop down to the right hand carriage, it’ll be easy to re-use the existing limit switch by mounting it on the side of the 2020

Close ups of the existing limit switch and the protrusions on the right angled mounting block.

Overall, minor things , but shows you should plan things a little in advance and test fit stuff before ‘going for it’

Fortunately this is nothing a quick angle grind and carriage print can’t fix….which means re-assembling the original printer to print a new bit, D’oh!

MGN12H crappy linear rail bearing blocks

What’s more sensible than spending $9USD on a basic, possibly non working chinese no-name bearing block?

……..Spending hours and a few quid trying to do ’em up!

Parts I’ll need…

• 3/32 Drill Bit (or possibly 2.4mm if it needs some play) …………..[edit, turns out a 2.4mm is too small! Looks like 2.5 is the go]

• 3/32 Ball bearings (bound to loose a few)
• Something to drill with
• something to clamp down the carriage without damaging it

After a few minutes with the calipers and Tinkercad, I give you……….

Chinese ‘cheap’ clone linear rails MGN12 Beware and a teardown

The Cheapy ‘Hiwin’ clone rails and blocks arrived a while back and they haven’t really dissapointed. By that, I mean, I kinda got what I was expecting. Still, only a small premium paid and 3 workable carriages / rails……