22/03/2026 :: X Axis & Plate

Got the X axis working today!

I attached the X stepper and put on the drive belt, now the hotend moves left and right!

I also played around with the Z axis, and am noticing some significant problems...

The motors have not trouble when going down, but when I want to move up they immediately sieze.

At first I thought it was an alignment issue of the lead screws, considering that this whole project has the tolerances of +- whatever, but then why was it having no issues going down? If the two Z guide rods weren't aligned it wouldn't what direction I was going, the whole thing would just seize.

If I pushed up on the whole X axis though, the steppers stopped seizing on the way up, and now seized on the way down!

Turns out the steppers were severely under-currented. They were producing almost no torque and seized as soon as they met some resistance. For the X axis that didn't happen because the load on the stepper is quite light, just the hotend and its chassis. The Z steppers have to move the whole X axis up against gravity, which needs more force that they can't produce.

I decided to investigate the under-current issue later, focusing first on another issue that emerged while testing the Z axis.

The hotend couldn't actually go down far enough to reach the buildplate before hitting up against the Z steppers...

The first option was to move the whole X-Z rig down relative to the frame, which isn't really doable since the Z steppers are resting on the frame's base.

The second option was to move the bed up to meet the hotend. I decided to do that.

That means making the Y chassis much thicker than it is now.

The current chassis is somewhat crooked as well, so I'll make a brand new one with a different method.

Instead of screwing four beams together, I'll glue several plates (still hollow in the middle) in several layers. This should ideally make a less crooked chassis.

So today I cut all the plates (3 in total), ready for gluing next time.