Show your MODS

[RobH2]

Here's a MOD I did today that I'm pretty excited about. Changing a hot end on these printers is anything but fun. It's just tedious to get that screw up in the bottom of the mount, you can't see it, there's no room and it drops out 5 times before you ever get it started and tightened. Man, what a drag and I cringed every time I needed to change a hot end or pull one off. So something had to change. I came up with an elaborate system to do it and then I thought, let's keep this simple. I pulled the extruder off of the carriage and removed the stepper motor. At the hardware store I got some #10/32 all thread and put two nylon lock nuts on the end (metal nuts with nylon inserts to lock on the threads) and the nuts are upside down. The nuts are larger than the printed hex holes on the extruder body. By turning the nylon lock nuts upside down, the conical part on the top pulls down into the hex holes and centers things. I left 2. 5" of rod extending down. It came out the bottom and on that I put a brass sleeve that was cut short enough that it could go over the exposed threaded rod and give me enough room for a washer and a wingnut (there's a washer on top of the sleeve too so it doesn't cut into the bottom of the wood). Now to change a hot end, all I have to do is spin those two "easy access" wingnuts off, raise the extruder off of the carriage, change heads and repeat in reverse order. It takes about 2-minutes instead of 5, 10, 12....who knows? Plus, I'm cussing less because everytime that screw fell out as I was trying to get it up in the hole and stared, I barked out some obscenity. My wife is much happier now. The only downside is if you have Autoleveling. The lefthand bolt interferes with the sensor leg. I had printed out two parts to hold the servo (if you've done Zennmaster's autoleveling technique you know what I'm talking about) initially because the first one had a small flaw. So I pulled that left part off and sandwiched them. I had to cut away the front part of the inside one so the sensor leg could move but that left a good spacer on the top edge and back edge. I mounted that all lack and the sensor leg cleared nicely. But I now had one more issue that I think you "autolevelers" have discovered. The servo body eats up some of your Y-Carriage travel and you lose about 1/2" of print area. I've been living with that and sad about it but now I was taking even more away. So, I pulled the face off of the lefthand rod bearing box can cut away some of the plate so the servo body could move into it. Now I have all of my Y-Carriage travel back. And the wood is still strong enough to keep that bearing in place nicely. Here are some photos: