Step 19 - Problem getting bolt to reach the captive M3 nut

Vertex 3D Printer Vertex - Assembly and user manual
1

After over 25 hours of assembly I feel like I’m nearly done, but I’m hung up on a problem I can’t seem to solve myself.

On Step 19 the instructions are:

I have gotten 2 of them to catch after hours of trying… but I can’t seem to get the other bolts to catch the nut and start threading. I’ve tried tipping it backward and even all the way onto it’s back. I’ve tried tapping it with a little mallet to get the nut to shake around…

Does anyone have any tips on how to get these nuts to engage the bolt or do I just have to keep at this for several more hours until I get lucky?

2

I used a magnet to pull the bolt.

3

Oh interesting! Did you put the magnet inside the printer to pull the bolt into the nut? Or did you magnetize the bolt to pull the nut to it?

4

I put it as close to the hole that the bolt slides into.

5

I used a slightly longer M3 bolt (M3 x20 I think) - with this I could push the bolt all the way back and screw it in very slightly - half to full turn only.
I then pulled the nut back with the bolt, unscrewed the M3x20 then very carefully screwed in the M3x16. I think I also tipped the printer back slightly so gravity helped a bit. It was quite reliable in the end.

6

I ended up removing the entire piece that the captive nut was inside and inserting a little bit of soft plastic into the holes behind the captive nuts. That made it so that when I tried to screw the bolt it was guaranteed to catch instead of having the nuts floating around inside.