Ender 3 - Dual Z mod

Description

<h1>Dual Z mod for two motors - either on a single driver or dual driver</h1> **Important!** I suggest printing this part out of ABS or PETG. It will not work in PLA. Print the parts as shown in my screenshot. The parts should be aligned like this when you load them into your slicer. You might be tempted to align the brackets with the flat side down, but this will make them weaker in the wrong orientation. You can do it if you really want, but I make no promises about the durability of them if you do. Also, make absolutely sure that the Z axis leadscrew lines up once you install it. If it does not, you're gonna get Z axis binding. ________________ <b>INDEX</b> - Why? - Included in this mod - Single driver, dual motor - Two drivers? - How do I align the two motors? - Non-stock parts needed - Stock bracket replacement - Non-stock parts needed - Second Z bracket ________________ <b>WHY?</b> Why dual z? The short answer is stability. There are many factors to consider when upgading your Z axis, but specifically for the Ender 3 you are gonna get a huge boon from it. Your print quality might not immediately increase, but your Z axis will now be so much more stable. A huge problem with the Ender 3 is that the X gantry has a tendency to come loose. This means the gantry may be wobbly or crooked. With a dual Z mod you will get a rock solid gantry, and this leads to a much more consistently trustworthy Z axis. ________________ <b>INCLUDED IN THIS MOD</b> In this mod I have included the Z2 bracket and a motor bracket needed to hold the Z2 motor in place. I also included a spacer to stabilise the Z2 wheel cluster. I have also included a Z1 bracket in case the Z1 on your stock Ender 3 is bent poorly or in any way damaged. I have included Z1 as a version without the E motor holder for those who want to do Direct Extrusion and I have included a version with the E motor holder for those who do not. Finally I have included a Z leadscrew stabiliser. Do not believe all the rumours about it causing misalignment and banding - if your leadscrew is perfectly straight(as it should be!) then these do not have those issues. Furthermore, if you have a spring coupler for your Z rod, you're going to need these. Even if you don't want to add a regular 608zz bearing in there to stabilise the Z rods, you can use them without a bearing as alignment stops for the single driver version of this mod. More about this in the "How do I align the two motors?" section ________________ <b>SINGLE DRIVER, DUAL MOTOR</b> You can run a mod like this on a single stepper driver as long as the stepper driver is rated at 1.5A or above. You will need to increase the driver current to 1.5A to have enough for two motors. I have included a picture of how to solder two cables together to form a Y split wire for two Z motors. Boards like the SKR 1.4 and 1.4 Turbo have the Y splitter built into the board, so for those you will just need two motor cables. I have been told from some sources that you are better off running your Z motors in serial. but I do not know much about this. But it's worth looking into if you want to optimize. ________________ <b>TWO DRIVERS?</b> Yes, you can run this mod with two drivers, and that also means two motors able to run seperately. This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, doing it like this will allow you to put less strain on your stepper motor. It will also allow you to use a BLTouch or similar probe to automatically align your two Z motors. But on the other hand, if your Z1 motor skips steps but Z2 doesn't this can lead to your motors going out of sync and becoming misaligned during printing. You can attempt to fix this with syncing belts at the top, and it truly shouldn't be a huge issue, but it's something to keep in mind. ________________ <b>HOW DO I ALIGN THE TWO MOTORS?</b> Aligning the two motors is essential to getting the most out of dual Z. And your printer. Aligning the motors sounds difficult if you start thinking about measuring tape and so on and so on. But it's actually quite simple. There are two techniques I suggest - one for dual driver and one for single driver. **Dual driver:** For dual driver, you can auto align your Z axis with the G34 Marlin command. This makes your printer probe Z1, then Z2, calculate the difference and move the motors to try and line them up. It repeats this 3 times or until the deviance is at 0.1mm or below. Repeat the command until the Z axis is aligned. **Single driver:** For single driver you can't use G34 as the printer cannot move the two motors independantly this way. That's where the Z stabilisers come in. Make sure the Z axis stabilisers are all the way at the top, lining up with the bottom of the extrusion keeping the sides where they're supposed to be. Even if you didn't add bearings to the stabilisers, you should still install them. Then you just move your Z axis all the way up to the top of the printer and using increments of 1mm you keep moving the Z axis up intil the first side crashes into the z stabiliser(yes, this is not a joke, your stepper motors can handle gentle stalling like that). Then keep moving until the second side also crashes into the stabiliser. Once both sides have crashed into the stabilisers and are stalling, your Z motors are now aligned and ready to move back down. ________________ <b>NON-STOCK PARTS NEEDED - STOCK BRACKET REPLACEMENT</b> - 1x M8 washer(to place under the eccentric nut so it doesn't wear through the plastic) ________________ <b>NON-STOCK PARTS NEEDED - SECOND Z BRACKET</b> - Suitable motor(NEMA17, get one like the ones on the Ender 3) - Z leadscrew - Leadscrew nut(these usually come with the leadscrews when you buy them, but make sure) - Z coupler(I got a spring coupler to allow for a little play in case everything doesn't like up perfectly, but I made this design directly on the Ender 3 CAD file from Creality so it should line up perfectly) - 6x M3*8 bolts(I used M3x10 and used some washers to shorten them artificially, but M3x8 should be the correct length. Get some washers just in case though) - 2x M5x40 bolts(or an M5 threaded rod you can cut to length and glue locking nuts on) - 1x M5x50 bolt - At least 3x M5 washers, but get more in case you need to shorten some of the bolts a little for whatever reason - 2x 8.35mm spacers, just like the ones that are on the printer stock, you will need an additional 2 of them. I included a file to print them, but I suggest getting metal ones for durability - Motor cable to splice into the stock cable. Some motors will come with these, but if not you're going to have to buy one or improvise one You can never get too many bolts or washers to keep as spares, so I suggest buying more than you need. If you contact a legitimate bolt supplier you can usually get M3 bolts for close to no money

Statistics

Category

Tags