So I was looking at the openbuildspartstore, and damn.

3D Printing HercuLien and Eustathios
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So I was looking at the openbuildspartstore, and damn. T-slot is still a lot cheaper, and the price of the v-slot wheels/plates is pretty up there.

I’ve been googling around but I’m not seeing what should be there (I think) - e.g. a v-slot alternative for t-slotted extrusion. The idea here being to lose linear bearings on rails and use the t-slot and wheels for linear movement.

Any ideas?

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You may want to take a look at the post history of @Shauki. More specifically, his #QuadRapCarriage and #OctoCarriage designs may be similar to what you want. Alternatively, he’s recently made progress on a v-slot design, #vCarriage. I haven’t had a chance to look into his most recent designs, but they’re usually effective, minimal, and intuitive. It’s possible that his approach to v-slot movement is less expensive than the current approaches.

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I only buy the wheels, not the wheel assemblies. I have a bunch of bearings and washers and screws, I can put a v-wheel together for about $2 less than a set on openbuilds goes for.

As to the extrusion, you could build a jig and route one face of t-slot with a 90deg bit to give you two 45deg faces. Once I have cleared some projects out of the way I will give it a try with some 2020 I have lying around.

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Thanks guys - good reading to pull through. Right now it looks like short-term, I’ll build something simpler. Once I can print out parts I’ll aim for something more like the Eustathios - cutting out the cost of the bloody gantry plates and connecting bits and bobs would help a bloody ton. On a brighter note, openbuildspartstore has/had 300mm ACME screws for 10$ each, so that helps a bit :stuck_out_tongue:

Mike, interesting idea on the jig-thing. Unfortunately I’m a bit lacking in terms of space to do…anything like that. Hah. But as far as the wheels go, I don’t think the V-wheel will work for standard t-slots. Moot point at this point, I picked up v-slots today anyways.

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a ‘jig’ is, in my case, a couple of bits of mdf with a hole for my router… about 1sq foot.

If you can’t find room for one sq foot, you must sleep standing up…