Maslow Rigid Z-axis custom part

thingiverse

The Z axis control on the Rigid router suffers from too much play in three different areas: the traveler on the lead screw is loose and wobbles, the lead screw itself has some movement in it, and the key that mates to the router is not secure. This print replaces the original traveler that rides on the Z-axis lead screw, pushing the router up and down, to help reduce play. The design also includes a washer added to the lead screw to minimize back-and-forth movement. A standard washer was flattened to fit perfectly. Polycarbonate was chosen as the material due to its robust properties, although it barely reaches the required temperature on my machine. Other plastics could work just as well. This part is listed as a work in progress because the threaded hole turned out too far forward. This is caused by the original design's larger hole with a spring release, which pushes the center of the lead screw off-center. To compensate, I centered the new hole on the original one, but this resulted in the key not fitting properly into the slot and requiring trimming to fit. The spring also became too loose, necessitating some bending to fix it. Additionally, the key is a bit small for the router's slot, resulting in significant play from that area. Finally, the threading was a tad tight on my part, so I had to work the screw to get it to fit properly. Now that I have something functional, it may be a while before I revisit and improve this design. Therefore, I'm releasing all original FreeCad design files for the part, the lead screw used to make the threading, and the combined part, in hopes that others can start working on improving them right away. If someone beats me to an updated version, that's perfectly fine!