Production-side Decoupled Z-stage by pandelume

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

This is an extension of Twotimes\\' wobble arrester ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2151 ), and Bophoto\\'s floating-nut arrester ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3052 ).
Basically, this takes Bophoto\\'s floating-nut idea and pushes it to the production side for a fully integrated floating Z-axis. When used with the integrated Z-rod ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3755 ), you have a complete Z-axis stabilizer that could be implemented pretty much as a stock feature of the cupcake. For example, if you plan on cutting your own panels (or having them cut), you can substitute these for virtually the same cost and have an out-of-the-box improved Z-stage. The only thing you\'d need to make specially are the Z-bearing guides, and those are easy to make even if you have no machining skills (like me), or can be printed.
Additionally, if these parts are fully fastened (like the Z-guides are on the stock makerbot) they function exactly as the existing guides do, so you can always roll back by putting in a few extra fasteners.
SIDE NOTE: This is derivative of the cupcake (GNU GPL), Bophoto's work (PD), and Twotimes' work (GNU LGPL), so I'm not sure what license is the correct one for me to use here. For now I've put it as GNU GPL, but I welcome comments.
EDITED TO ADD:
Per Bophoto's suggestion, I have uploaded a version of the floating z-guide with slots for two of the fasteners. When used as a z-stage isolator, this should be used with only one fastener, however - whichever one seems to be the best for decoupling the threaded rod in question (I think it should be the one in which the slot long axis lines up with the threaded rod, but YMMV).