Greg's X Carriage with Quick Change Clip System
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Published on April 9, 2012
Description
UPDATE: No longer a work in progress, as it did work just not well enough. Version 2 now exists and is by far superior. If you want to print one of these I do recomend going for the Quick-Twist Release Greg's X Carriage instead.
After poking around on here for a while, I decided it's time to contribute.
So without further ado here’s my modified X Carriage based on Greg's X-Carriage.
Basically after seeing many complex quick change systems to switch extruders, I wanted something simpler.
Essentially this is a way of changing extruders by using the existing hardware and nothing more. We do this by taking a slot and hole idea seen on many household items to mount to walls ect. (i.e. on the back of power boards) with a screw in the wall and hanging it off the head.
Current design is a little finicky on bolts being exactly right. Thinking of adding an indent where the bolts should end up and a spring washer to pull em in tight but allow room to get em back out by pushing on the end of the bolt while twisting (current design has no lock so it can vibrate loose if not tensioned correctly). Also rearranged the belt stuff in the center as I changed the corners of the big hole so there is more plastic where the bolt head goes through next iteration may use a spacer to help with holding the bolt in just the right spot (my groove mount plate has holes slightly wrong so holds the bolts in place but on a machine with correct spacing there could be a problem). Also, everything is a little big atm slot and hole can be made a little narrower.
A final note.
This has not had much testing yet, so only use it if you know what you’re doing. It is also not fully parametric yet. Until it is more complete I won't be attaching the scad... soon (it’s a bit of a mess atm)
Also all credit where it's due to Greg and everyone else involved as this is essentially an addin file to replace the mounting holes.
UPDATE: SCADs up. go nuts
After poking around on here for a while, I decided it's time to contribute.
So without further ado here’s my modified X Carriage based on Greg's X-Carriage.
Basically after seeing many complex quick change systems to switch extruders, I wanted something simpler.
Essentially this is a way of changing extruders by using the existing hardware and nothing more. We do this by taking a slot and hole idea seen on many household items to mount to walls ect. (i.e. on the back of power boards) with a screw in the wall and hanging it off the head.
Current design is a little finicky on bolts being exactly right. Thinking of adding an indent where the bolts should end up and a spring washer to pull em in tight but allow room to get em back out by pushing on the end of the bolt while twisting (current design has no lock so it can vibrate loose if not tensioned correctly). Also rearranged the belt stuff in the center as I changed the corners of the big hole so there is more plastic where the bolt head goes through next iteration may use a spacer to help with holding the bolt in just the right spot (my groove mount plate has holes slightly wrong so holds the bolts in place but on a machine with correct spacing there could be a problem). Also, everything is a little big atm slot and hole can be made a little narrower.
A final note.
This has not had much testing yet, so only use it if you know what you’re doing. It is also not fully parametric yet. Until it is more complete I won't be attaching the scad... soon (it’s a bit of a mess atm)
Also all credit where it's due to Greg and everyone else involved as this is essentially an addin file to replace the mounting holes.
UPDATE: SCADs up. go nuts
Instructions
Print it.
Note how far bolts that hold extruder are in.
Replace current carriage with it.
Put the bolts back into extruder about as far as they were.
Put the bolt heads through the big holes.
..And twist.
If it won't twist bolts may be too tight so loosen. This will only work if the bolts are just right. Too loose and it will move about, too tight and you will break something.
Note how far bolts that hold extruder are in.
Replace current carriage with it.
Put the bolts back into extruder about as far as they were.
Put the bolt heads through the big holes.
..And twist.
If it won't twist bolts may be too tight so loosen. This will only work if the bolts are just right. Too loose and it will move about, too tight and you will break something.
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SimCity
on
September 13, 2012
said:
been working on a couple of changes.
The original cracked through the center due to the large hole and possibly me putting too much force on it. thinking of putting large hole at one end so it can only rotate one way but be stronger and also rotating the big hole so the corners arent right beside the slot been meaning to get round to
updating it but have been experimenting with chocolate
rrhb
on
September 13, 2012
said:
so what's your assessment after all this time? is this a workable robust design? I like the simplicity and am interested in trying it. -hb
License
Greg's X Carriage with Quick Change Clip System by SimCity is licensed under the Attribution - Share Alike - Creative Commons license.
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What if you add an indentation (not a full hole) for the cap of the screw to sit in when it's locked in position? Then you only have to loosen the screws (maybe even just one) a little bit to allow the extruder to rotate freely.
I think I did have a setting in there to do just that, I do talk about it in the description but can't remember if I actually did put it in. I have since retired this design, found it to be too weak. V2 is almost complete, just in the process of printing it and once I test it a bit I'll put the whole thing up and not just the little module thats there at the moment