The Z-drive on my Prusa i2 dropped again and I’m looking for clamp ideas that I could fab at home (non printed of course 
Right now I’m using the old-school printed 4-screw “paddle” style clamps along with aquarium hose threaded on the rods and it’s served me well for a year or so, but I’m guessing the just wore out.
I used vinyl tubing, changed the 8mm rod to 6mm (with a printed nut adapter) and zip-ties. And then 2 months later, ripped it all apart and built an i3. Still using the same tubing…almost a year later I think.
6mm threaded rod is much nicer to do layer height calculations on because 1 full turn = 1mm. So anything that’s a multiple of 0.005 is perfect. 0.20, 0.25, 0.21, 0.215, etc. Gives you accurate cogging on the stepper motor (no inaccurate microstepping) and perfect layers.
@nop_head has upgraded as of last summer to using neoprene tubing on the Mendel90. Can’t find the link right now but he cited several benefits to the change.
Found it !
Neoprene won’t work on an I2 because it doesn’t have enough grip to suspend the axis from above. Mendel90 has the motors at the bottom.
I did a similar mod @ThantiK to get rid of z-wobble (although I used an odd sized threaded rod because I couldn’t get 6mm locally, but that’s another story :).
When you say you used tubing & zip ties, is that all you used? Back when I was tweaking on this I tried just slipping tubing over the motor shaft and threaded rod and zip-tied each end, but I couldn’t get it to grip, and it seemed like there was some “slop” when the motor changed direction, but maybe I was doing it wrong?
If I can make that work, sounds like a great way to fix it with stuff I can find around here.
That’s all I used. The tubing I used was slightly smaller than the 5mm shaft, it required a bit of force to actually get on. Then on the other side, I screwed the 6mm threaded rod into the tubing - couldn’t push it in at all. Then zip-tied to make sure it all stayed in place. That’s all I used. Nothing else. I did, however, take 2 pair of pliers, 2 to grip around the retainer portion of the ziptie, and the other to pull the ziptie super tight.