A coworker bought a 3D printer and made a whole bunch of cool stuff with it, and although I tried to resist buying one, it did not take long before I was shopping for one. There seems to be a lot of utility to 3D printers and I like the idea of being able to produce 3D models or just downloading something from thingiverse and printing it out. Time will tell if I made a good choice on this Anycubic Kossel Plus with linear rails. So far I have not been able to start building it since the linear rails are pretty crappy. After cleaning them and lubing them with "Super Lube" as well as cycling them, there was an improvement for sure, but still only one is good, one is marginal and still sticks, and one is crap. I am checking with the company I purchased from to see if they will replace the rails that are bad, and if I can get good ones then will proceed with the build. - Update - looks like they are coming through with some replacement linear rails so I hopefully I won't need to swap the bearings. My backup plan would be trying some replacement 3/32" chrome steel grade 25 ball bearings if the replacement rails also suck.
Update - If they don't want the old linear rails back, I may see if the worst one can be salvaged using some lock-tite clover lapping compound. I used the clover previously to lapp the steel shims in the mini-mill X andY axis (these are the parts that the set screws push against to adjust the tightness of the X or Y axis on the mill). Basically it is applied like grease and run though to smooth out any high or rough spots - just need to be careful to clean it all out when done. That could well destroy the linear bearings so even if it does clean up the races, the ball bearings would need to be swapped out, which is probably OK since the ball bearings that these shipped with are probably part of the trouble anyway. So my plan to salvage the worst rail (if the seller does not want the faulty linear rails back), is:
1. swap the bearings with some G25 chrome bearings I ordered, and re-pack with Super Lube, then see if that fixes it.
2. swap back in the original bearings and pack with clover and then run them to lap the races a bit, clean out all the cover and bearings, install new G25 chrome bearings and super lube and re-test.
I will post an update when I try this, assuming the seller does not want the faulty bearings back.
Update - If they don't want the old linear rails back, I may see if the worst one can be salvaged using some lock-tite clover lapping compound. I used the clover previously to lapp the steel shims in the mini-mill X andY axis (these are the parts that the set screws push against to adjust the tightness of the X or Y axis on the mill). Basically it is applied like grease and run though to smooth out any high or rough spots - just need to be careful to clean it all out when done. That could well destroy the linear bearings so even if it does clean up the races, the ball bearings would need to be swapped out, which is probably OK since the ball bearings that these shipped with are probably part of the trouble anyway. So my plan to salvage the worst rail (if the seller does not want the faulty linear rails back), is:
1. swap the bearings with some G25 chrome bearings I ordered, and re-pack with Super Lube, then see if that fixes it.
2. swap back in the original bearings and pack with clover and then run them to lap the races a bit, clean out all the cover and bearings, install new G25 chrome bearings and super lube and re-test.
I will post an update when I try this, assuming the seller does not want the faulty bearings back.
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