I'm working on a project for a large printer with a 1000mm C-Beam as the z-axis. It seemed to work great, but there's a lot of wobble around the z-axis (a couple millimeters back and forth). I've tried tightening the gantry plate, but nothing seems to effect the amount of wobble significantly. Is this an inherrent flaw in the C-beam design or am I doing something wrong?
It is not an inherent flaw as such, you just need to understand that every system has its limitations. For something that size I probably would have gone with a larger plate and used solid V-wheels running on the outside edges of the rail instead of the narrowly spaced interior wheels. The wider the grip, the more stable the plate.
Could I do that with the existing c-beam and a new gantry plate (or something along those lines) or would I have to buy a new part? I'm still unfamiliar with Openbuilds parts.
Yes, you'll need 4 of the solid V-wheel kits (regular or Xtreme, your choice) and a plate at least 5" (127mm) wide x 3/16" (min.) thick. Bolts and spacers from the existing wheels can be transferred to the new holes. If you go thicker with the new plate than 3/16" you'll either need to recess the heads like the current plates or move up to 30mm screws. Side-to-side spacing of the holes in the new plate should be 100mm for the wheels to fit properly to the outside of the track. Vertical height of the plate is up to you but I probably wouldn't go less than 5". I cant really tell what you have going on there from the picture. Are you using 2 gantry plates stacked vertically to support the platform?
No, I just used the C-beam kit and bolted my bed onto that. The bed has a lower, welded plate to make the right angle, and an upper plate for leveling and attaching the heated bed. I'll try setting up a v-wheel kit if I can afford it though. Thanks
You could use the 20mm-80mm plate (the 20mm plate won't work) but you may find them a little thin for your usage. If you could find something 5" square x 3/16 thick that would provide much better support. As far as the wheels, there is probably no reason you can't reuse the mini V-wheels you already have. You'll just need to space the holes 92mm apart horizontally rather than the 100mm spacing used for the for the regular wheels.
Okay, that makes sense. I think I have a clear direction on this now at least. I think I can play around with it from here. I really appreciate your help. It's nice that everything is so versatile.
