Topic: updating Lawsy Carriages...
So after doing a regular cleaning and lube of my #1 SD4, was running a couple of prints and noticed that the idler pulley for the X axis was making some squeaking noises... add a couple more drops of oil to it, and it quiets for a few minutes, then starts squeaking again...
Ok, time to do something more permanent about this.. I had been thinking about this for a while, actually... I want to put bearings in the right carriage for the idler pulley..
poked around in my spare parts bins and came up with some small bearings... 5mm ID x 11mm OD x 4mm thick... common bearing used in RC cars (which we have lots of here)
whipped up a quick basic model of it in 123D design, then imported both it and the right carriage into Blender for the actual modifications.
(Blender does not have "real" scaling, so i did this to make sure it was of the correct size)
First order of business was to slightly enlarge the areas the 5mm screw goes through, in order to have enough working room for the bearing to fit. Also had to make them slightly thicker. That part was fairly easy.
Then it was on to actually modeling the pocket for the bearing to fit into...
Bottom side went pretty well...
upper side had a small issue, however (looking at it upside down, from the inside)...
As it turns out that was a pretty easy fix as well. Simply had to move the 2 points of that ridge back a little to clear the bearing pocket.
And this is where it currently is... just need to finish rebuilding the faces to fully enclose things again, and it will be ready for a test print...
If this works out well, once it is done, I will be sharing with the SD community.
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1