Very tight Y-axis

Vertex 3D Printer Vertex - Assembly and user manual
1

Hello Everyone!

I am “stuck” at chapter 16- “mounting the printhead” for a pretty long time now. The X- axis moves very easy, it´s enough just to tilt the printer a bit and it will slide. The Y-direction is pretty tough to move, especially when moving the printhead away from the middle, towards one of the end panels. I tried to adjust the clamps according to the directions stated in the build manual. 33.6 and 32.8 respectively. However a ruler or a tape measure is NOT a caliper, and it is very difficult to measure such tight tolerances with such an instrument. Then I try to either make the distances slightly shorter or wider, although it is very difficult to adjust the clamps by fractions of millimeters, as it often tends to be way to much be several millimeters.

Does anybody have some suggestions or tricks to adjust these clamps?
Is there any way to adjust the clamp distance, while the printhead is still mounted in place inside the printer? It is very frustrating an time consuming, to take the whole printhead assembly out of the printerbox every time to readjust the clamp distance, and then to mount the whole thing back again.

Is there any way to know if the clamps should be moved closer towards each other or further away from each other? Giving that the printhead moves easier around the center of the Y-axis (still tough tough) and gets increasingly tougher towards the edges.

Any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Michael Andersen

2

Hi,

It’s the trickiest part of the build. move your axis towards the end and check if the outer rods tend to bend inwards or outwards. Inwards means the clamps are too close and outwards that they are too far from each other. If they are tooo close it’s quite easy to hammer them a bit without taking everything apart. It’s a bit harder if they’re too far.

3

Hello Raby

Thank you very much for your reply, it was most helpful! :slight_smile: Now the Y-axis slides VERY easy!

I will suggest anyone who are having problems with a tightly moving Y-axis or X-axis for that matter, to do the following procedure:

Mount the clamps pretty close, some two millimeters closer than what is suggested in the build manual. Then place the printhead in the machine according to the instructions shown in chapter 16. Now take a small hammer and small flat piece of soft wood or plastic. Put the piece of plastic on one of the clamps and GENTLY knock it, in an outward direction. Then try to see if the movement is lighter. Repeat the procedure on the opposite clamp. Just continue the procedure until the axis slides easy.

It worked for me! :slight_smile:

4

[quote=“Michael Andersen”]It worked for me! :-)[/quote]Glad to hear that:) And you’re welcome.

For further troubleshooting you can have a look at the [color=#408040]Wiki[/color]