After two years of usage, the x carriage of my laser cutter became rather wobbly. Wobbling! My old nemesis! What should I do?
First, I tried to use different bearings. I bought some DryLin PTFE self-lubricating plastic bearings:
But they were no use in my configuration. They tended to bind, and what’s worse, were a lot more flexible and thus wobblier.
More Hardware
So instead, I opted to buy some longer linear bearings and the fitting mounting clamps. My dear trusty shot at steplab.net does not seem to sell to private custumors anymore that easily, so I purchased the parts from grobotronics.com, a greek shop.
- 4 clamping hubs 15mm patterned (https://grobotronics.com/clamping-hub-15mm-bore.html) ~25€
- 4 linear bearings 8mm 15mm 45mm (https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B078PBP169) ~10€
I had to drill the aluminium channels so that the bearing could fit though the holes.
Bye Bye Wobble!
Finally, the laser cuts perfectly straight lines and perfectly round circles. Sub-millimeter precision.
It took some adjustments, because the metal guide rods had to be perfectly in parallel, but in the end it was totally worth the effort!
