6mm Improved X ends for Prusa with clamped rods
Description
Instructions
At the same time, throw out your old motor couplers, and switch over to a flexible vinyl tubing for your Z motor Couplers (from the 5mm Nema 17 motor shaft to the new 6mm Z axis threaded rod), and your print quality will be considerably higher. Do make sure that the new 6mm rods are totally straight. Test them by rolling them on a flat table prior to installation, they should roll freely without assistance other than maybe an initial push. If they hesitate, you have a bent threaded rod, get another one, don't try to unbend it - unbending rarely goes well.
Everyone talks about upgrading to 6mm threaded rods, but no one uploaded the X-Ends to do this... Until now.
Enjoy!
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Also, fun fact, this is almost the first asymmetrical thing i've printed, and it came out mirrored. Cursed when i saw it, but then i thought that it would actually look better, and because of the stepper now mounting the other way around, the axis got inverted and prints are not mirrored anymore.
I just did my first test print using my new parts, and it's a big improvement, despite the fact that i obviously have gotten one of the couplers crooked, the motor wobbles quite alot when running z up and down. I imagine it will be even better once i fix that, great work beekeeper! I definitely think 6mm rods are the way to go.
I did end up using a 7.5 drill, starting from 6.5, being very careful since it looks so thin.. but it feels strong and rigid.
I usally don't see any curling on larger prints just like you say, and I am using the cool function, but i think the heat radiating from the nozzle takes away much of the benefit of going slower. Also there will always be big objects with a small top, and it's like a challenge to be able to do small fast prints without issues.. I'm gonna try insulating my hotend some more and then try some more fan ideas.
As i understand netfabb is windows only?
Good going. The 6mm hole is very easy to drill out and the crosbar structurally extremely stong, so it works well. Funny thing, probably more than half of reprap machines are mirror initially because they followed the old documentation and videos that led you down the funny path. I didn't discover my first machine was mirrored for at least 2 weeks after I was getting good prints. For a couple weeks, I used Blender to mirror the STL files when it became an issue. Use Netfabb's website cloud service, it isn't Windows only, and it cleans up stl files very well. Try lowering your nozzle temp when printing small cross sectional areas, 5 to 10° makes a BIG difference on some parts.
The motormount stl seems broken, would it be possible for you to fix it? I tried, using meshlab and blender but to no use. Using slic3r, and idler printed just fine.
Yes, I just added 2 STL files that end with "fixed", where I ran them each through Netfabb Cloud and fixed the files and made them both Manifold. The normal output from OpenScad produced a non-manifold Stl on the motor mount file. Funny thing, the version of Skeinforge I use, sliced it correctly, but Slic3r balked until I sent the "fixed" files through. All is well, just used the "fixed" stl files.
Could you point to the discussion or reference about benefits of using 6mm rods ?
Here's one on RepRap.org : http://forums.reprap.org/read....
another discussion where the author takes more extreme steps (but doesn't show the end peices produced, just the problem pieces starting him on the long journey to fix the problem) is at: http://3dprinterusers.blogspot...
Check Google if you need more info.
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Awesome upgrade for my mendel i2, thanks!