First major overhaul of my vertex

Vertex 3D Printer Vertex - Your printer, creations, and ideas for im
1

After printing about 15-20 spools of filament, my printer was suffering from various small issues. Worst was the worn out ‘ildugur’ linear bearings on the X and Y axis, each time the carriage changed direction your hear that there’s play on it. I postponed the overhauling a few months already as I don’t enjoy working on the Vertex; it’s all so dawn small!

So I went all the way:

  • changed all timing belts (comparing old ones to the new ones: changing was not really needed)
  • checked stepper motors: no play on the bearings
  • XY bearings in the printer casing: no play
  • changed the pfte tubes inside each hotend: there were signs of wear due to combined high temperature and filament pressure, also some leaking of black ‘tar’. It’s early to say be it appears I could print faster without filament jams after the replacement.
  • changed all four ‘ildugur’ bearings: there was quite a lot of play on these; that was necessary.

So basically the vertex in quite durable, except for these Ildugur bearings. They have a cool name but don’t live up to their expectations.
Fortunately the build form of these bearings is an industry standard and you can replace them with metal linear ball bearings LM8UU like these: llamatech.be/shop/nl/lagers/ … 15x24.html. The metal ones are all around like a millimeter smaller so printing a ‘filler’ first might be feasible.

Why didn’t Velleman use these in the first place?

2

I did the same to mine after just 1kg of filament and im glad i did. I suddenly couldnt print circles and dimensions was off in the Y axis. Been through everything from voltage on the stepper drivers, XY alignment, belt tension, placement of stepper motor vs belts and finally thightening the setscrew on the stepper motor :slight_smile:

Now its running so silent and prints are amazing.

3

I was actually thinking about the lubrication of the rods.
I understand that the rods come pre-lubricated with mineral oil/grease so that mineral (compared to silicone) grease/oil should be applied.
So far, I feel that applying a moderate lubrication on the 6 rods would help preventing wear. What I usually do is to clean the rods with piece of cloth and the wet an other piece of clean cloth with light oil and wipe the rods with it.
I do that periodically, say every 12h hours of printing.
HTH

4

I tend to lubricate all rods prior to each print: that seems to be working well for me, so far.

But there’s no doubt, that after a period of printing some parts will show wear & I’d accept that the plastic bearings will be among the first to require replacement.

Thanks for pointing out these replacements - will keep an eye on that, when servicing time comes. :slight_smile: