Anet A8 Print Head Micrometer Height Adjuster by sportssedan

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a Anet A8 Micrometer height adjuster for the print head .The back half fits directly onto the 3 linear bearing blocks the same as the original aluminium bracket , & uses all original screws for mounting . An adjustable dovetail wedge plate slides into the rear mount & the original Print head/extruder screw directly to this plate using 3mm x 10mm self tapping screws . An Inductive sensor mount is also provided , in 12mm & 18mm sizes to mount a sensor .
A piece of 8mm x 1mm fine pitch threaded rod ( or 5/16 UNF can be used too) x 140mm long & 3 nuts are needed for the variable height adjuster .A thumb wheel with 10 graduated l markings is used to adjust the height . This gives a resolution of 0.1mm ( 0.004") per graduation & allows the head 12mm of variable height adjustment .A compression spring 25mm long x 10mm is used to Take all backlash out of the design , as well stop any vibrations
Adjustments can be made while the machine is printing , so if a brim layer appears to be slightly too high or low , it can be adjusted immediately with out having to stop printing or adjust the control panel .
Adjustments are completely independent of all electronics, sensors & home switches etc, So once an adjustment has been made it will remain constant for all further prints .
Whilst there are electronic adjustments & updated firmware available , & the sensor upgrade has drastically improved Z axis calibration , i still find this device particularly useful to make fine & accurate adjustments quickly on the go.
The 2 dovetail wedge parts should be a neat , almost a little tight , so there is no movement or vibration between the 2 parts .
If they are too tight , just pear some plastic away with a sharp knife until the fit is correct .
You will loose 20mm of Y axis with the additional thickness of the mount , but you can get most of that back by spacing the Y axis home micro switch forward as there is some room left on the Y axis sliders ,You an also change the offsets in the arduino firmware if your confident editing arduino code. Just make sure you measure everything & re-calibrate your slicer software for your maximum Y travel & test that you don't exceed axis travel .
You will also need some M3 x 40mm Countersunk screws & nuts for the sensor mount & the belt mounting pins .
Update :(April 8 2017) Just added a mount to fit a Bowden E3D -V6 Extruder head that screws directly to the Front Slider Mount at (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2236009)
Update: 12/4/2017 added a sensor mount for the Tronix XY08n sensor
Update : 8/5/2017 Just added a sensor mount for a 30mm diamater proximity sensor. Its ugly but it has a 15mm Sensing range , so it is much better & has much more clearance when using a glass table .