Mendelmax 2.0- X-axis assembly

Assembly of the X axis.  Directions here got a little confusing but thats part of the fun when you are helping test something out.  A lot of changes have been made to the directions already and have clarified a lot of the questions I had when assembling these parts.  Here we go!

Parts.



Bushings. This part was pretty confusing- Think I've gotten it figured out now thanks to their support group.  They need to be "broken in" because they are very stiff at first.  Kinda hard but not impossible.  Getting them installed into the bushing blocks was confusing because I didn't understand which direction they were supposed to go in, but that has also already been addressed.









Rails.  Pretty straight forward.  One thing I discovered later is that you don't need to tighten them now- leave them loose so later when the x plate is installed you can align the rails.  This needs to be done the carriage doesnt bind.

These blue things hold the rails together and also hold a special nylon nut that the z-axis screws thread into.





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Bushing plates prepped and ready to install on the rails.





X cars ready to install. These fit in the rails and act like a bearing as the x plate slides back and forth- keeping it aligned and theoretically, low on friction.





X plate installed on cars and rails.



Belt Tensioner. ***These pictures are wrong- there are supposed to be 5 washers under the bearings to spacer them out from the plate. I will update these pics when I have access to them (posting from an Ipad right now...)









Finished x-axis. The entire thing is put together loose- I was expecting to have to do a bunch of aligning and I was right. As you will find out, it takes some fiddling to get the axis to move freely without binding.




Time Spent on this step: 1 hr 5 min.
Total time so far: 4 hrs 15 min.