Mechanical Assembly
Tips
General
- Avoid excessive force!
- Take your time, measure twice.
- This is not rocket science (it’s garden tools), we do not need 0.001mm precision.
Frame
- A granite countertop or other similarly flat surface will assist with extrusion alignment to ensure a square frame.
- Measure diagonals to check squareness - measurements should be < 2mm different.
- Extrusions that are attached using blind joints may rotate. This will be prevented by the panel corners and skirts later in the build.
Idler / drive unit assembly
- M5 standard washer thickness is 1mm ±0.2mm, so washer counts in the manual are meant as guidance. As an option, you may purchase 1mm thick shims which have tighter tolerances. It may be useful to have 0.5mm washers at hand to align pulleys and bearings optimally in your build or to swap in and out to ensure proper fitment.
- Make sure your toothed pulleys are GT2/2GT!
- Make sure your pulleys do not wobble. Rotate them on a shaft and look for eccentric movement of the teeth. The flanges are not critical
- Use genuine Gates GT2/2GT belts for the open loop belts–off brand/generic GT2/2GT belt is commonly wider than 6mm which will cause it to ride up on the flanges of the idler bearings
Belts
- Make sure that both A/B or X/Z (Switchwire) belts are of equal length! This helps validate belt paths and tension during assembly.
- If using a belted Z (V2), make sure all Z belts are the same length. This helps with tensioning.
- Do not cut belts flush once assembled, leave an inch or two for adjustments or reassembly
Gantry Assembly
- The gantry can be assembled and belted before you install it in the frame. Measure the outer width of the gantry before tightening to make sure it is correct
- Routing the belt in the a/b drives looks tricky, but there are several ways to ease this:
- Fix something stiff like a cable tie or some wire to the end of the belt to help with routing
- Use dental picks to guide the belt
- For V2, Z joint screws should not be too tight to allow movement when doing quad gantry adjustments
- For V1, V2, and Legacy, gantry should be squared with equal belt tension. See the guide for setting gantry belt tension.
- Measure both diagonals to ensure squareness
Bed
- Bed screws should always be left slightly loose during initial assembly and finished tightening while bed is heated after a few heating cycles.
- Trident and V2 should firmly tighten one screw, then slightly tighten 2 others. (V2 can leave one screw alone)
- V0 is leveled using the bed screws and has a different process.
Build Manuals
V0
Current
Historical
V1
Historical
Trident (Replaces V1)
Trident Assembly Manual V1 Upgrade Manual
V2
Current
Historical
Switchwire
Current
Legacy
Current
(coming soon)