X carriage IGUS conversion

RoLL

LMU bearings on the X carriage of my A5 are noisy during fast mouvement and acceleration.

Very annoying, especially since I have installed TMC2208 to make my printer as quiet as possible.

So I decided to replace these linear bearings with some IGUS drylin bearing.

What you need :  x3  RJ4JP-01-08 Bearing

First we have to reduce the lenght of 2 of them:
Use a hacksaw to to that and use one of the groove at  the end of the bearing as a cutting guide.

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Remove the whole X carriage (the tricky part)

Don't forget to mark rods extremity position for easy re-assembly

Remove carriage end.

Remove LMU bearings, and install IGUS bearings as shown below

Re-assemble the X carriage and put it back on the printer, install the belt

Use 1 turn (not more) of KAPTON tape to secure IGUS bearing one of each other.

Put back the cover plate, don't over tight it. If not, you can seized bearings on rods

Check if the print head  move freely

Lubricate

Done

netzmark

The part holding the rod (on the second picture) is plastic in my A5 and can't see there any imbus-screws holding the rod.

The metal "holder" is original?

I consider to replace X-rod as it seems be not straight and thinking how to do this. Can't see there any screws but also can't rotate upper rod, just need more force?

RoLL

It seems that your Printer is a V1 version and mine a V2 or a newer model  (http://jgaurorawiki.com/a5/info)
So yes all parts on the second picture are genuine.
Try to share pictures of your X carriage especialy details of both extremity, and we will try to find how to remove X Rod

netzmark

Hi Roll

I don't know where V1 or V2 marking can find.

Manufacturer quality pass marki is September 2018, bought as "JGaurora Updated".

Attached two pictures.

Lower rod I can rotate easy, upper - tighten hard but don't know how.

Samuel Pinches

@netzmark
your printer is newer. They replaced 3D printed parts with CNC machined parts, and then replaced those later on with Injection moulded plastic. There is no compromise to print quality that I have seen, and they lowered the price at this time too.

Removing the rods... I am not sure. You may need to think about it carefully, how to do this easily. Before you begin, I think you will want to separate the printer into the original two parts... gantry and bottom chassis.

netzmark

Hi Sam,

As this upper rod is held quite strong I'm little afraid to force rotation and break something.

But it looks this rod is 0.15mm banana-centre-up.

I was sure I have the bed centre-lowered 0.15 so found some new glass - and effect the same.

y150x1 (left edge centre)= z0, y150x300 (right edge centre)= z0 but y150x150 (bed's centre)=z-0.15.

So I wanted rotate axes 180deg to check if get centre z+0.15 to be sure...

Do you think I'm sentenced on to use the bed mesh map to compensate it?

Samuel Pinches

Sorry, I don’t know. I think it’s worth trying to fix it properly first.