Extending the bed

  I finally have the longer shaft to extend the bed, I bought a 60" long 12mm shaft and cut it into three peices.

  I got the old bed apart and found my issue with my bed never going to the same spot when I tell it to go to the 0 position, the right bearing had over a 1/4" slop in it, it was really bad, the guide shaft was really flopping around bad so I replaced it with one that I bought for the front corner for when I expand the bed size. 

  I put everything back together and when it would move up or down the left side would jam and skip (slam violently back level) as it moved up and down, I figured it was misaligned so I designed some new parts that will hold the shafts level with each other, I tried to print it out and it completely went wrong so much so that it jammed itself so bad that the power supply shut down.

  I was having a hard time dealing with some other stuff so I just shut it down for a few days, when I brought it back online and went to readjust the left guide shaft I could hardly move the left shaft, I really had to fight it to get it out of the bearing, when I finally got it out the bearing steely balls went everywhere, the bearing was destroyed so I had to replace the left bearing as well.

  I am glad I have been buying the parts I need to upgrade here and there so I had them on hand.

  The aluminium casing that holds the bearing is supposed to be universal so I thought I would slide a new bearing into the casing and be happy.... nope the hole in the casing is just a little smaller than the standard bearing size, figures, cheap Chinese made crap. That's what I get for trying to save a buck.

  At the same time I decided to put a bandaid on the current bed, the heated bed is just a thin fiberglass circuit board with a heating element pattern etched into it, since it flexes so much it is hard to level the bed so I saw a pain pallet at Harbor Freight for around eight dollars that was plenty big enough so I cut the rounded part off, cut a spot for the wires etc, got it under the circuit board and all was happy for a day or two until.... 

  I had to drill two holes through the heated bed to mount onto the wooden base as the wooden base isn't quite long enough and it was really close to the main power traces on each side of the board, I had no problem but the washers under the screws had ended up wearing through the epoxy on the board with all the bed adjustment I had been doing and it was now making contact with the main power traces on the bed, add a metal plate underneath that the screws go through and it created a short that every time I went to heat the bed would shut down the power supply, when I figured it out I put some non conductive material under the washers (cardboard) and it is good to go and is happy again.

  I now have the printer up and running after a week of it being non functional for a week and I am now able to print something 20" tall so I am happy with that.

  I think my next steps will be to replace the XY carriage and then replace the bed with the full size heated aluminum bed.

  

  More later.