Printing
Here we can see the Anet A8 printing the X-Carriage in dasfilament orange PETG. I’ve printed everything at 150 microns layer height and around 60mm/s maximum speed with outline underspeeds etc. handled by my slicer.
Voilà
Almost everything is printed now. I haven’t mentioned yet that a few of the LM8UU bearings might be 3D-printed. Yes, I have tried this on the A8 for a few months now on the X-axis and it’s a lot quieter than before while at the same time protecting the smooth rods that can be damaged if a bearing ball gets stuck. This is the reason why I’ll try it on my MK3 as well, and those guys still have to be printed. The tolerances must be just right, so I can only do this as soon as my smooth rods arrive. It just takes a bit of trial & error. You can find those on Thingiverse, and a separate article about them might follow in the future!
As you can see, it’s not that many parts, they almost fit in this small box! The last part that has yet to be printed, in addition to the linear bearings / bushings is the electronics enclosure. I found a remix of the “real deal” to fit my board, as I won’t use the 100€ Einsy-Board, but instead went for a 80€-cheaper option by using the classic Arduino + RAMPS combo. This model is made for the MK2, so I haven’t printed it yet; I want to check first if the original MK2 and MK3 enclosures are exactly the same. If not, I’ll take the original MK3 cover and remix that myself. More info will follow!
