Today my large order of bolts, nuts and washers arrived at the door so I decided to assemble the base frame and stepper mounts. My custom CNC HDPE nuts seem to have worked perfectly.
When trying to figure out how I would join the frames together I thought I’d just use M5 bolts and nylon lock nuts. However the nylon lock nuts, due to their hexagon shape and size proved hard to use. When putting them in a plastic slot it wouldn’t take more than a turn or two before they bored out the slot and began spinning inside.
I knew this wouldn’t do so I decided to make my own nuts from HDPE plastic. They were extremely easy to cut on the CNC and to drill/tap the centre hole I got help in the form of two jigs I made on my CNC router.
After doing this procedure on some 20-30 of these little HDPE nuts I was finished. I then threw an M5 tap in a drill and quickly and easily tapped all of them. All done I had nice and strong M5 nuts that are a glove fit for the slots cut in my frame pieces.
With the stepper mounts fitted next up was putting in the stepper motors. Unfortunately I brought 10mm long M3 nuts, 2mm too long as it turns out so I had to shave 2mm off each bolt. But when I was done:
The frame is starting to come together! Next up I’ll need to get my electronics case mounted. I’m having some issues with the case – the SD Ramps (SD card expansion board) is extremely hard to mount due to its lack of mounting holes.
When I do sort this out I’ll be making the rod clamps on the CNC. These clamps will hold the hardened chrome steel rods in place and keep them from moving. I’ve got a lot of work to do yet but this printer is coming together quicker than I thought it would!