Last post I detailed the updates on my XY Joiner. This post I’m going over the updates made to the mounts on the top assembly (Bar, Idler, and Motor mounts).
Like I said in my last post, I mainly made all the mounts smaller and more streamlined. Simplifying and separating parts made them fast to print and easier to install. Since starting to put these pieces together though, I’ve found a few problems with my design and might revert to a design similar to the older design, but more on that below.
The motor mounts have, for the most part, stayed the exact same, just separated and spaced out for other parts. The bar mounts are significantly smaller and much easier to print and handle. Same functionality, just significantly smaller. I do like having it all as one large piece since it ensures the spacing between parts, so I might go back and experiment with this.
Another change is I designed this little mount for the Y Endstop. I had already worked out all the tolerances for the microswitch, so I just copied those over onto this little guy. It easily clamps to the bar nice and tight and is at a height for the XY Joiner to bump right into it. With a couple of holes in the back I can easily run all the wires through to the main control board.
Similar notes for the idler mounts. They idlers themselves have remained basically in the same position, moving them back didn’t yield any more space due to the design of the XY Joiner only being able to travel so far on the rail.
The one problem I have found with the new bar mounts is since they are so small, when I have installed them, they have some ability to float around thanks to the nut and bolt having some wiggle room in the aluminum extrusion. This wiggle room can cause huge problems when it comes to getting the rails aligned properly. I’m thinking of designing these so they lip around the extrusion oh so slightly to make sure they are square and centered. I have tried to manually combat this misalignment during installation by using the XY Joiner assembly as a sort of spacer, loosening the bar mounts and tightening them again, hoping they will find a natural relaxed state, but I can’t imagine this won’t have a negative impact of some kind.
Next post will go over the X Carriage design!
