CounterSync RepRap XY-Plane

thingiverse

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING. DON'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING YET. IT WON'T MAKE SENSE AND IS ENTIRELY USELESS ON ITS OWN. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This will be a collection of parts I designed and tested that are required to build an XY-plane for 3D printing. Here is the basic concept: 4 steppers, one in each corner of a stiff MDF/fiberboard (NOT PARTICLEBOARD OR MELAMINE) at least 15mm thick. There are 2 steppers driving each axis—one running forward and the other in the opposite direction (each axial pair is countersynchronized). I've considered just about every possible configuration and will post the ones that I think work best and are most versatile. Here's how they vary: -Vertically or horizontally mounted steppers -Above plane or below plane -Right-side up or upside down -Inside rails or outside rails -Aluminum tubing rails + PLA bearings or standard 8mm smooth rod + LM8LUU -Single spanners or dual spanning rods/rails for the "crosshair" -Moving bed or moving hot end (requires optional cut out in plane) -V-mounted idler pins (M5 screws) can only go in from the bottom but I can offset the hole to allow it to be screwed in from the top I even thought of using 2 planes to sandwich the steppers between but that didn't make much sense in terms of accessibility. Since my Z-axis and extruder are completely independent of the XY-plane, they will be ignored for now. My Z-axis converts between raising a stationary hot end or lowering a stationary bed with each successive printed layer. If you don't have an independent Z-axis, the XY-plane alone is useless. Just a heads up. So the main parts of the XY-plane will be: -4 stepper mounts -8 rail mounts -4 linear bearings -8 belt clips for the linear bearings -Upper and lower "crosshair" that will hold either a moving bed or moving hot end -Span mounts which connect the spanning rails/rods to the X and Y bearings I'll post 28BYJ-48 V-mounts, L-bracker H-mounts and more pictures to clarify things.... as well as everything else you will need to build an XY-plane. The main photo shows V-mounts and the assembly on the right is what I'm about to mount onto the 28BYJ-48 XY-plane. UPDATE JUNE 22, 2018: Included vertical-8m-nu-idler-1j.stl which requires 4 x 50mm M3 screws to mount into a 3/4" platform. This has a self-contained idler which makes a lot more sense than drilling an idler whole through the platform. Idler pin is actually a 25mm M5, you'll need a tap for that, but I'm sure this is the best way to go. I also included a very convoluted BLEND file you can edit for different heights. The object you want to modify and export to STL is called 'Final Mount'. Compatible w/ 6mm 2GT belts and 20T pulleys/idlers. Also added a bearing sleave for LML8UU bearings in case you want to use standard 8mm smooth rod instead of aluminum tubes. That STL is called nu-LM8LUU-vertical-1p-temp.stl.