[sonicwonder2000]

Next up the z-carriage. The entire assembly will ride along the gantry beam providing z and y axis movement. As mentioned above, the clearances here are excruciatingly tight. I had to grind off almost every nut to make everything fit correctly.

PICS:


1) Z-car front. Z-bearings are mounted here and pulled in to the z-rails via 1/4" threaded tensioning rods (not shown here)

2) Z-car back. Houses the y-bearings which are pulled to the rails via tensioning rods. If you look at the bottom angle, you will note that it had to be mangled to allow for the shorter clearance of the new aluminum extrusion rail supports.

3,4) You can see how close the bearings rotate to the nuts. They had to be ground down to prevent rubbing on the bearings and causing binding.