hey. anyone other than me that has been thinking of changing the bronze bearings at the printerhead to linear bearings? or maybe iglidur?
i hear many have rattle noices in their k8400 at the shaft endings and makes adjustable endcovers to get rid of the noice. but i have a noice in the bronze bearing at the printhead.
any toughts about that? is it wise to change?
or should i just get new rods and bronze bearings and hope for the best?
I had quite a lot backlash in the bronze tube bearings. Firstly I replaced the (shorter) top bearing for a bottom bearing, which is longer.
Secondly I replaced the rods. This was because I made my Vertex larger so I had to have longer rods. Fortunately this new rods were slighly thicker than the old ones and so, as a side effect, the bearings fitted precisely around the rods. I don’t have any backlash in the printhead anymore.
The only rattle I still hear is the radial fan on top when the head moves fast in x-direction. I once replaced that one also and that helped a little, but if anyone found a radial fan without the axis backlash, thus silent, I would like to hear…
[quote=“svdv”]I had quite a lot backlash in the bronze tube bearings. Firstly I replaced the (shorter) top bearing for a bottom bearing, which is longer.
Secondly I replaced the rods. This was because I made my Vertex larger so I had to have longer rods. Fortunately this new rods were slighly thicker than the old ones and so, as a side effect, the bearings fitted precisely around the rods. I don’t have any backlash in the printhead anymore.
The only rattle I still hear is the radial fan on top when the head moves fast in x-direction. I once replaced that one also and that helped a little, but if anyone found a radial fan without the axis backlash, thus silent, I would like to hear…[/quote]
well maybe i should try to change the rods to new ones that maybe have higher quality, and change to new original bearings.
i´ve seen your xl build. pretty sweet upgrade, i wanna do that too. but its expensive to get stuff lasercut 
i hear no sound at all from my radial fan. but then again i have tonnes of noices from the bearings. so that may be why i dont hear it.
I’ve got CF53 DIN 1.1213 hardened steel, surface-hardness 60-64, tolerance ISO h6. Also used them for the four carriage rods, but it was hard to get the slightly thicker rods in the sealed bearings. I had to sand the two ends a little bit. I don’t know where you live, but in The Netherlands: thn.nl for the rods. Before you order new rods, maybe it’s wise to try a piece to fit in the bearings.
The lasercut mdf costed me € 55,-- (snijlab.nl). Jakemog22 ordered the original Vertex size panels in mdf also over here from Denmark.
Good luck.
Linear bearing would be good option. I recently purchase Reliabot 350 mm MGN12 Linear Guide Rails and its works best for me. So it linear rail would be good option which i think. You can take help from this blog to chose linear rail for your work.
Joomen SBR25 Support Rails is also good option