HuxleyMotors

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Revision as of 11:03, 6 February 2011 by Kymberlyaandrus (talk | contribs) (Y Axis Motor, Belt and Endstop)
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General

This page and its peers should guide you through assembling a RepRap Huxley from the TechZone kit, or from parts you have printed which are the same as the TechZone parts. It is a work in progress, and needs some help, feel free to edit this document to add comments of you your own, or contact us [here] and send us messages asking us for better clarification or details.

I am starting by posting the pictures I have, and over the next few days, I will fill in the instructions and detials (24 Dec 2010)

Thanks,
Lambert (TechZone R&D/Support/Documenter)


You can access this page and it's peers (for the other parts of the Huxley assembly from the Main Huxley page or from the TechZone Huxley Page


Before installing the motors, I recommend that you hook them up to the electronics and adjust the trimpot on the electronics. The reason is that if the trimpot is up too high, the motor will get hot and warp your plastic parts. To protect your machine and all your hard work, take a few minutes to got to the first installation section of the electronics page to get the motors adjusted correctly.

X Axis Motor, Belt, and Endstop

Standard X Axis belt configuration




Install the X Axis endstop and flags



Here is my (--AlexRa 22:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)) version of how the X belt and the optostop should be assembled)

Of the three axes, installing the X belt was the most straightforward. The only weird moment here was that the driving pulley had to be installed upside-down (with the gear towards the motor)!

Huxley X motor pulleys.jpg Huxley X idlers.jpg

Huxley Opto X.jpg

Placing the opto was not so obvious. Note that depending on what you consider the front side of the machine, you install the optos differently. I assembled mine assuming that the Y motor is in front, and the X motor is on the left. Therefore, both X and Y end stop must be on the same side with there respective motors. This does not necessary have to be so, but in any case the X opto must be on the left side and the Y one in front of you. Here is how I put it on the X axis:


Preparing the optos: the optos in TechZone kit have 3-pin connectors with 2.0mm pitch. The kit also contained some crimp connectors with 2.54 mm pitch. Besides being a bitch to install on the wire without a special crimp tool, the connectors didn't fit very well with the optos (obviously). My solution was to remove the connectors from the optos and solder the cable directly to them.






Install the X Axis endstop and flags


Y Axis Motor, Belt and Endstop

Alternate Y Axis Belt configuration

Alex has done a gread job of figuring out an alternate belt layout, he did not like how the teeth roll over the idler bearings, so he configured it a bit differently. I like what he has done, so I am leaving it here for other people to see. There are not enough washers in the kit to do it this way, so if you decide to do the same, you will need to get more washers.

( here is my (--AlexRa 21:42, 30 January 2011 (UTC)) version of how the Y belt should be mounted.)

Note that the plastic Y-motor mount is similar to what's used in a full-size Mendel, and has a special extrusion for mounting 2 pulleys. However, with that path the belt meets the pulleys (or at least some of them) teeth-in. That might be acceptable for Mendel which uses larger bearings for the pulleys, but for Huxley with its 10mm bearings (and the same belt pitch) the teeth-in placement isn't a very good idea. Instead, I used 2 of the motor mounting screws to install the pulleys on them, very similar to how it's done on the X axis:

Huxley Y drive pulleys.jpg

To align the idlers with the driving gear, you need to install them about 6mm above the mounting plate. I had a few spare large (20mm) washers, so I used them here. If you don't have that many from the kit, use two M3 nuts (plus some small washers) instead. However it looks like the washers will withstand the belt tension better.

One the opposite side, another 2 idlers presumably should be installed, but I found that only one is needed. It's mounted exactly as the ones above:

Huxley Y idler pulley.jpg

Installed this way, the belt moves easily, never meets any idlers teeth-in and doesn't touch any other part of the construction (although it does come uncomfortably close to the Z belt).

Here is where I put the Y opto (in one of the holes presumably intended for the idlers). The flag is not visible on the photo. It's on the "frog" plate and has a rather trivial geometry. Once you put the opto in place, you'll see where to mount the flag.

Huxley Opto Y.jpg






The Y Axis Endstop and flag


Z Axis Motor, Belt and Endstop





attach the Z Axis endstop and flag