I disassembled my mechanicals kit from RRP this week in preparation for drilling the holes to run the wires in the frame. I took it apart on my kitchen island that has a granite top on it. After laying one of the frames on the counter top I noticed that it rocked back and forth when it should have laid flat. After taking all of the pieces apart I got out my feeler gauge to measure exactly how much twist there was in the rail. Here are the results:
One of the 330mm z-axis rails has a corner gap of .559mm and the 420mm rail has a gap of .279mm. Here is a picture to show how I measured the twist:
The other rails had such a small amount of twist that I was not able to measure it <.127mm (smallest feeler gauge I have) and they did not seem like it would make a difference. I notified RRP and sent them the same pictures and am waiting to hear back about replacing the rails. Has anyone seen this before? Thoughts?
This is my first printer I have built but I have to imagine that the amount of twist in these two rails would make a person go insane trying to square everything up. The twist in the 420mm rail would make trying to level the bed a impossible. I am hoping that RRP can get a couple of replacements to me in the next week or so.
I called Inventables today to see what the manufacturing tolerance is for the makerslide v-rail and they emailed back that it is .5 degrees per foot. Not being an engineer, I am not sure how to compare this to the amount of twist in my rails. I just know that mine seem to have quite a bit, especially the 330mm rail (.559mm)