Wow, thanks for all of the tips!! Some of these, I've figured out the hard way already. LOL Others were surprisingly not a problem. My kit came with a nicely labeled spacer kit for the motors which worked perfectly so that I got maybe 5 or so threads into the motors. Should be good.
I'm partway through assembly now. I have found that a huge number of the wooden parts don't quite fit together (probably swelling?), so I've spent literally hours having to carefully widen openings with a file. For a couple, I had to pull out my Dremel with a small circumference sanding tip to widen openings. Right now, I'm having to widen all of the openings for the stacks of pieces which surround the large Z axis linear bearings while assembling the print bed.
I also accidentally broke a wire off of one of the leaf switches and ruined the switch while trying to solder it back on. Had to make a run to Radio Shack to buy another leaf switch, then bore out the mounting holes for M3. That added a little delay. I'm about 16 actual work hours into assembly now and hoping to finish up today.
I'm sure anyone new to this can relate to the fact that my biggest fear right now is that I'll turn it on after all this and nothing will work. LOL
The worst thing is, they just announced that they are selling assembled and tested units now. Doh!! I would definitely have bought one of those, if it had been available a week ago when I ordered. *sigh* Timing is everything.
Thanks again snowy.
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snowygrouch 1
I would say the following:
1) Dont rush it, I took about double the standard time to do it, and Im glad I did
2) I ditched the black fabric cable tidies, if you never ever want to modify the thing again they are ok.
but as soon as you want to swap around some cables.....hmmm
So I used things like this instead
http://solutions.3m.co.uk/wps/portal/3M ... 8PZZ0J6Bbe
3) Using the edge of a stanley knife blade or similar, deburr the edges of all the belt sprocket wheels. The washers
on the side of the sprockets have pretty sharp edges which are bad for the belts. If you have any misalignment it will fray the belt edges.
4) Buy some M3 nylock nuts, for certain critical areas its nice to not have stuff vibrating loose
5) Dont carefully cover the entire bedplate with blue tape all trimmed back to the ruler lines (like it
says in the assy insructions). Its a waste of
time and blue tape. Just figure out from the slicer build screen how big the parts are you want to build
and cover the relevant area of the table. This will dramatically limit your tape usage.
6) Buy some light machine oil for the XY rods, the thick blue grease supplied is only for the Z rod. So bicycle
chain oil or sewing machine oil (dont get it on the belts when you are applying it, oil rots rubber).
7) The stepper motors are mounted with bolts that are too short and only engage by about two threads.
It might "work" but its not a great idea. So buy some longer M3 bolts, or cut down some spares.
8) I oiled all the wooden parts the day before I assembled them (Linseed oil or similar). This has the benefit
of drying and making the wood harder and more durable, and also proofing it against moisture, oil and water spills.
On the negative side it means delaying your build by a day, and also it will "raise the grain" of the panels so you need
to give a very quick sand down after its dry.
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