Straight as an arrow, smooth as a baby's bottom

Yes it's a terrible title, but it's relevant.



The machine shop was inexplicably closed two weeks ago, so we only had one day to machine anything. However there is some progress to show at least:


Here you can.... oh wait you can't really see anything changed in this picture. Oops. Oh well. You at least get to see the moose plushie my mom plopped on top of the stage (I wonder if that could be a selling point -"strong enough to support a moose").


Distinctly Canadian eh? All we need now is maple syrup and a hockey stick.







In this picture you can see the whole "binding" bearing arrangment I discussed in my last post (that may have been confusing without a picture). As the image shows, the bearings clamp both sides of a single aluminum angle, ensuring that x stage will always travel straight. The opposite side of the x stage has no side bearings so there's no chance of accidental binding or rough spots.














In this picture you can see the replacement for the y stage teflon slider that I envisioned. Turns out -as Kal our machinist friend mentioned- Teflon is a very soft, "finicky mistress". The current solution is actually an Igus drylin n-type linear slider. They're fantastically cheap (compared to ball-bearing tracks and carriages), and the company seems to have great customer service (they sent the 6 specified track lengths and carriages for free when I asked for a sample, shipped it in 3 days, and were very helpful and understanding on the phone). The slider carriages have minimal friction (being made from their proprietary iglide material, which i think is Delrin) and have replaceable glide pads (although replacing the entire carriage at 5 dollars seems like a fairly cheap option too). I'm so pleased with the result that I'll be replacing the z stage roller bearing slider with two Igus sliders, which will save me 20 dollars in bearings and reduce the amount of machining time and effort required. Hopefully I can show that in the next post. Oh and the extruder bolts onto an aluminum angle, which itself bolts through those two open holes in the image. I'm anticipating that this will allow for easy installation and modification.

Well that's it for now. Aside from the timing belts and pulleys (which we're still having trouble sourcing), the x and y stages are complete. Hopefully by next week I'll have most of the z stage completed.

till next time (or week?),

Eric
-WatRapter team co-lead