Linear rails guide and test on Ender 3 and Ender 5

today we fit linear rails to the end of three and five and do some test prints to see if there really are better [Music] [Music] our linear rails better on paper yes if you were designing a machine from scratch and one of the very best you would definitely choose them compared to V slot extrusion plus V roller seen on many popular 3d printers they have tight tolerances don't suffer from flat spots and don't need any adjustment they should also need less cleaning and maintenance I've had plenty of requests to make a video like this so I guess people are interested to see if this is an upgrade that makes print quality better printer mods comm has supplied me with parts and rails for this test both for the end of 3 and end of 5 this is ideal for a comparison test because the end of 3 has a heavy moving bed on the y-axis and the end of 5 has more lightweight moving parts that variation should give us a good range of results we're going to keep this simple we're going to do some test prints install the parts do the test prints again and then examine the results these parts have been supplied to me by printer mods comm and have been running their modular direct drive kit on my end of 3 for quite a while now the linear rail system is modular too so it's important to know what parts you need before you try and fit them if you like you can do the white axis by itself and the price varies depending on the size of the printer and the parts required to do the x axis on either printer you basically only need the modular direct drive kit because it already has the mountings inbuilt the only variation is the end of 5 where the belt system is flipped 90 degrees and we need this small adapter to suit one of the things that I like about this kit is that you self Saucer linear rails as long as you match the specs and the length you can choose any brand you like so you can spend big on genuine or if you prefer go for a budget option the instructions for these kits are quite good they're Illustrated and they're step-by-step and currently in development is a proper support portal for customers to open a ticket I'll work through a range of knowledgebase articles all of the parts that come a CNC machined aluminium and anodized in black there are high quality because they're lightweight precise rigid and attractive too before we get started there's some preparation you need to do depending on exactly what you're feeling there's a range of printable calibration and alignment tools so check the instructions for your particular printer and be prepared your linear rails will also need some preparation the instructions point to a video by Alex eNOS I've watched the two-part series and I recommend that you watch it too we're going to do this in sections starting with the end of 5 y-axis the first step is to unplug the end stops for X&Y we're now going to undo the three bolts in the front corners of the machine to take the tension off the belts there's four V roller bolts for either side of the y axis we can now undo those and set them aside this should leave the X gantry only attached by the belts so next we're going to remove those bolts by twisting as we pull through the slot on the front and the back the x-axis gantry can now be placed out of the way making sure there's no strain on any of the wires after cleaning and lubing it's time to insert some bolts and nuts in our linear rail we're going to take one of our bolts engage it with the allen key push it through the second hole from the end and then get the t-nut screwing it on only a few turns will now repeat on the other side second bolt in we'll do our third bolt in the very middle and the fourth and fifth are spaced evenly between the outer and center bolt that should leave you with five evenly spaced bolts we now need to slide these T nuts into our extrusion on the left and right hand side of the printer that runs from the front to back I found the easiest way to do this was to undo one bolt from each of the silver brackets in those corners with these removed this should be just enough flex in the frame to be able to lift it clear and slide in the linear rail this can be a little bit fiddly but just take your time align them one by one and eventually the rail will end up in the right place before we tighten the mounts for the rails we need to get it clear of the silver bracket and do back up the railing on the side with the frame secured we're ready to introduce our two alignment tools and then finger tighten all of the bolts along the linear rail it's important to only do it finger tight at this stage because we still need to check all of the alignment we now take our machined bracket and use the m3 bolts to bolt it onto the bearing block again at this stage were only aiming for finger type in the kid there are four thick rubber washers they're going to be placed carefully on top of the outer two holes we now carefully retrieve the x-axis gantry and place it on top of our brackets in the kit you'll see that four of the m5 bolts have locked tight pre-applied and that's what we're going to use to secure the gantry to the linear rail brackets it's important to tighten these only enough that it doesn't wobble and that the rubber washer is not compressed the Loctite will stop the bolt from vibrating free with everything only finger tight you should now check the alignment of your y-axis since the belts for the y-axis aren't attached it should move very freely if yours is not sliding nicely or is binding in one particular spot there's a whole page of the instructions dedicated to fixing this once everything is aligned and moving smoothly it's now time to properly torque the m3 bolts you should continually check the gantry to make sure that it moves freely we can now reinsert the y-axis belts on the left and right hand side of the printer and then tension them back up optionally using the 3d printed tool available from printer mods comm plug back in the 2n stop switches and we are done next up is the y-axis for the end of three we're going to start by undoing and putting aside the four leveling knobs on the underside of the bed once these are off you should be able to lift the bed up vertically and place it out of the way for now take care to collect and not lose any of the bed leveling Springs the newest version of this kit is universal fitting an Ender three probe with 40 millimeter wide extrusion and the standard into three with 20 millimeter wide extrusion our next step is going to be taking the tension off the y-axis belt by loosening the four bolts that hold it in place this should allow us to twist out the belts from the front and back of the Y carriage we're now going to remove Devere Ola bolts four of them in total you can see the wider holes are used for the end of three Pro and the narrow ones use for the standard end of three but either printer or four need to come out the white carriage can now be moved out of the way for now we'll now prep the rails with the nuts and bolts this time we only need three one in the middle and then one on each end if we remove one bolt per side from the tensioning system it should slide down out of the way and give us clear passage to slide in our linear rails we once again clip on our alignment tools and then finger tighten up the bolts the same as we did for the end of five there's a small plastic printed piece to help touch the end stop and I'd recommend getting it in place before you go any further in the end of three kit there's more m3 bolts that are locked itíd there's one per corner for the rectangular holes that are pre-drilled and then there's a small rubber o-ring that goes over the top with all four of these in place where once again going to insert them but not so tight that the rubber washers underneath get crushed just like with the end of five y axis it's important that we have a small degree of freedom to take up any misalignment from the end of three frame not being square the right-hand side is the side that gets the 3d printed part bolted on to line up with the white end stop now is a good time to test this alignment and make sure that the end stop is cleanly pressed our Y carriage can now come and rest on top you'll notice that at the rear one side has a bigger cutout than other to clear the Y stepper motor four of the hole stood alone we're going to use m5 bolts to tie the Y carriage down to the linear rail adapters like with the end of five it's extremely important that the carriage guide smoothly if it doesn't the instructions once again cover alignment you can now tighten up all of the nuts and bolts continually checking for smooth motion now we simply need to put everything back together starting by inserting the y-axis belts tensioning the belt and then tightening up the screws at the front of the machine all that remains is to put the bed back in place by replacing all four springs and then doing up the leveling knobs underneath to compress down on them and that marks job done next up it's the x-axis for the end of five we're going to start by removing the two bolts that hold on the left-hand side of the fan cover after these are done we can slide the entire assembly to the side and then undo the two bolts holding on the hot end that should free up all of the electronics and you can carefully place it to the rear of the machine and out of the way next up we're going to take the tension off the X belt by loosening the two bolts and then we're going to come back to the center carriage and remove the X belt from either side with a twist you probably guessed it but our next step is to remove the 3v rollers in fact we only need to remove two because the V rollers and the entire carriage will no longer be needed after we perform this mod we're going to take the plate from the end of five modular direct-drive kit and our little adapter and we're going to retain it with two M three bolts and the sides make sure they're done up tightly before we proceed the Linnaean rail for the x axis will be prepared exactly the same way as the others this time I use six his evenly spaced as I could across the rail on the left-hand side near the belt tensioner one bolt was sitting up high and looking the paths are therefore temporarily backed it out to create enough space in the channel so I could slide the linear rail into position from the left-hand side once again this is fiddly but take your time and it will eventually find the right place we want to position the rail so it has just enough clearance for the end stock to be activated and then use some more 3d printed alignment tools to get the rail centered and then finger tighten up the six nuts and bolts holding it to the V slot extrusion we now take our sub assembly from earlier and screw it onto the top of the bearing block like everything else it's only going to be finger tight at this stage this is our last moving component so assuming everything is moving freely you can go back and tighten up all of the nuts and bolts now we can now reattach the belts to either side of the central carriage and retention them on the left side optionally using the 3d printed part to assist us with this job personally I would recommend it as it makes the job easier all that remains is to reassemble the hot end using the small plastic spacer in between the carriage and the heater block all of the other components bolt in exactly the way they were before and that means another job is done finally we have the installation of the x axis for the end of three I'm going to keep this one very brief because it's almost identical to the installation of the end of five remove hot end parts take off belt tensioner slide in the linear rail from the right hand side use the alignment tools and do up everything finger tight the only difference compared to the end of five is instead of needing a metal adapter plate we need this printed adapter plate to hold the belts in the correct position it sits on the rear of the MDD plate for the end of three using a simple captive nut and bolt to hold it in place as you can see it covers the existing belt holders and provides new slots for the belts are going instead once those belts are in place we'll follow the same principles as before using short m3 bolts to hold the MDD plate to the linear rail block then we tension the belts and reattach all of our hot end components the only mishap I had related to a part that I had designed separately that no longer slid down into position fortunately this was a 5 second fix using side cutters to trim a little bit off my part allowing me to retain my hiromi cooling remix another install done so let's quickly cover some general tips watch carefully after you power back on your machine as you home it for the first time you won't lose any build volume from these mods but you might find the center of your bed has shifted compared to the end stops on the end of three I had to slide the y-axis end stock forward around ten millimeters and on the end of five I had to slide the X rail as well as the xn stock sideways by around 15 millimeters you almost certainly have to re level your bed and if you're running auto bed leveling there's a fair chance you'll have to adjust and then save and use that offset there's a good chance there might be some variation in the linear rail that you order and printer mods have some variation pieces that you may need to print to ensure that parts like the end stop are depressed properly let's look at some before-and-after print tests on the end of three my first test print were these two elongated cubes at different angles next to each other they look pretty much identical some of the vertical banding that was on the original part is now absent from the linear rails and it's the same result on the angled piece but really the difference is pretty much impossible my other test print was a nice model of a lion with a base speed of 100 millimeters per second and point two millimeter layer height the before print was pretty nice on this one say for sums it's where the new layer started on the back of the lion at first I thought the reprint with the linear rails was disastrous but then I found the problem one of the wise for the part cooling fan had come off and therefore that print ran without cooling the reprint looked as you'd expect and the two lines are quite similar perhaps there's a very slight improvement on the backside of the lion where you can see a slight bit of banding in the original print that I think is missing from the second one but that's not necessarily down to the linear rails for the end of five I took a different approach repeating the acceleration test from a recent video ranging from 500 millimeters per second squared up to 3,000 millimeters per second squared with a base speed of 100 millimeters per second the end of 5 did a really good job on both of these with very minimal ghosting despite the high acceleration near the top there's very little to tell the difference between these two perhaps a speed and acceleration limit for this printer is a lot higher than these tests show my other test was this blink Fox again with the base speed of 100 millimeters per second let's start with the obvious I've got an inter minute extrusion blockage problem and it's pretty much ruin these prints but if we look at the areas where it didn't affect it they both look pretty flawless I can't really see any difference at all between them so a linear rails the magic bullet for improving print quality based on these results I'd have to say no if your machine is running well already there's very little chance that you're going to get a big improvement from them in fact there was a video by Thomas Reedy where he fitted them to a pressure mark 3 and it's assaults were actually worse his theory being imperfections and vibrations were transferred to the printed parts due to the extra precision for this kit a clever design decision to include the rubber washers does a great job of accounting for this if your B rollers have flat spots maybe they need constant adjustment or maybe you just want to modify your printer and push it to its limits then this monster might be for you this product is a good way to do it because of the choice said it gives you firstly you can supply your own rails so you can spend big or small depending on the brand you want to go with secondly it is modular so you can do it in stages as funds allowed for example you might already have the modular direct drive kit which means you can add linear rails to the x axis with the only cost being the rails and later on you might decide to do the y axis or you could do it all at once if that's what you prefer it's great that you have that flexibility and choice this is only one set of test results if you've done some before and after testing with linear rails I'd love to read about it in the comments below thank you so much for watching and until next time happy 3d printing g'day it's Michael again if you like the video then please click like if you want to see more content like this in future click subscribe and make sure you click on the bell to receive every notification if you really want to support the channel and see exclusive content become a patron visit my patreon page see you next time

Channel: Teaching Tech

Views: 479,093

Keywords: 3d printing, 3d printed, 3d print, 3d printer, linear rail, linear bearing, linear block, test, tested, upgrade, mod, modification, guide, lesson, tutorial, step by step, instructions, back to back, comparison, printermods, v roller, installation, print test, quality, ghosting, ringing, precise, precision, accuracy, accurate, teaching tech, creality, ender 3, ender 5, cr-10, cr10, kit

Id: I3xMHjiYENk

Length: 17min 5sec (1025 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020