by dalewheat » Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:11 pm
Thanks, Jeremy. It went surprisingly smoothly, considering I really don't know what I'm doing.
When my Hadron arrives, I'll go ever it a little more slowly and make some detailed notes. There's a few things that I found to be quite baffling in the existing instructions, but I'm sure they can easily be corrected. Also, I can add some more detailed notes about what fastening hardware to use, and where, as well as how to orient certain pieces. These are not obvious, and I had to go back and forth between the instructions and the assembly drawings several times at a couple of points.
I've been able to run the motors back and forth using a 3 channel TB6560 driver and the funny little pendant that comes with it. I'd post a video, but people have seen a Quantum doing more impressive things than exercising the axes.
I'm not happy with the fit of the folded belt clamps. It doesn't take much to pop the belt out a tooth or two. For example, running into the ends, since I have no limit switches installed yet. I think it only needs a small shim to make a tight fit that really would hold up to a great deal of weight. Alternately, if you leave 10mm or so of the belt sticking out of the clamp, and have some way of attaching it to the rest of the belt, either with super-glue or some sort of tiny clip, it seems to hold quite nicely. The problem with it now is that I mount the belt clamp with the pocket facing the carriage plate, to better hold in the belt. If it pops a tooth or two, I have to completely remove the two little screws that hold it in to be able to properly re-seat the belt. I don't like re-installing screws in plastic threads too many times.
So how do you recommend I mount some limit switches? I have lots of nice mechanical switches I can use for this. Is this what the T4 nuts and set screws are for? Only one was indicated in the existing instructions.
I'm also concerned about the wobble in the Z-axis lead screws. I can't seem to adjust it out completely. I loosened up the nuts, without completely removing them, and ran the Z-axis up and down many times to "break in" the Delrin nuts. I applied a small dose of DuPont Teflon Silicone spray lubricant and made sure some got on most if not all of the threads.
The Z-axis seems to creep up and down non-linearly. It speeds up and slows down once per lead-screw revolution. I've tried re-seating the lead screws in the shaft couplers both at the top and the bottom of the axis travel. The only thing I haven't double-checked or adjusted is the width separating the lead screws across the X-axis, but adjusting the positions of the Z-axis motor mounts along the rail where they are attached.
If it sounds like a lot of complaining and whining on my part, it's not. I'm just trying to document some of the little things that I either don't understand or don't work the way I think they should (which doesn't mean much, truly). Overall I'm still quite impressed with the kit as such. Hopefully this will help others get their units assembled with less time and trouble.
If I can get it to work with Mach3, then I will post a video on YouTube. Wish me luck!
Dale