Hey guys, I have been working on my own CoreXY 3D printer for a while and one of the challenges that I have faced is designing the Z carriage that moves the bed up and down. I wanted to know what kind of tips you guys have on designing these Z carriages that can be 3d printed. I want to have a sheet of metal slot and rest on top of the carriage like this part I designed:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/d8ad014b57f74fffb37e8cbd/w/29c9ed6edee9418ea7012c70/e/e90704137ab748f5963353ab
Not sure if you guys have tried anything different that works better or what. What I want to do is just have a metal plate and in the X carriage there will be one of those inductive probes that can measure the distance from the bed, that way it will just automatically level and I won’t have to mess with it. Thanks.
That looks like it will be a bear to print as one piece. The slot will have to be full of support material that will have to be removed. I don’t think I’d try that as a single piece.
There have been several machines that use a cantilevered Z axis like that. The Ultimaker machines, of course, but I don’t think they used a printed bracket. The Tantillus and its many variants did, but it was a smaller machine than what you seem to be planning. Look those up to see what ideas you get.
@Dale_Dunn Thank you for the input. I have already printed one of those and it requires some support, but cura is great laying support which is easy to remove. Last one I made was for holding a bed made out of acrylic, which I switched for one out of metal. Acrylic is horrible to be used as a bed because it bends too much.