Moving Right Along

When you have a 3D printer, you start to take the ability to make complex shapes for granted. Need a bracket that fits three different sizes of aluminum extrusion? No problem -- Just model it up and hit "print"!

Having to mill parts from a solid block is much more labor intensive, and requires more forethought. I tried to design as few machined parts as possible, but there were some areas where it was a necessary evil. For example, the extruder carriage mount.

We needed this part to mount to the carriage on the linear rail, and could not find an aluminum U-Channel that worked well... so we made our own.

I'm very grateful that my printer build partner has both machining skill and access to a mill. Though the above part is technically the only part that requires a mill, there were other parts that benefitted from the accuracy of the mill.

A lot of these holes could have been made on a drill press, but it would have taken a lot longer to line them all up.

The mill also helped with our leadscrew nuts, which were not exactly the size we were expecting.

Unfortunately, we didn't catch this error soon enough to backport it to our water jet files... so....

Good enough!

Anyways, next step is assembling the Z-Axis. First the cross beam...

Then we attached the top plate. It's held on with three M5 bolts, with springs and thumbscrews for easy levelling.

Then we loosely affixed the leadscrew nuts.

Finally, moment of truth.

Oh.... yes.

From the top.

From the front.

From below.

Beautiful!

What's coming next? Belts! Stay tuned!