RapMan 3.1 Pillow Blocks (Q47184)

These pillow blocks wrap the RapMan X and Y axis bearings in a nice comfy pillow instead of pinching them between bolts and acrylic sheets. Why would you want to do this? * Bearings run smoother when not pinched. * It greatly reduces the RapMan's rain of falling nuts and washers. * You can tighten these down with only a single hex wrench. * You wont easily snap the acrylic parts when you tighten them. * They are more stable. * They look cool. These are similar to the pillow blocks that can be found here: http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php?title=Spare_parts but are a new design with several features the others don't have: * These pillow blocks are not closed and can be installed with out taking the bearings off the rail so they require much less disassembly. * There is a backstop inside which makes centering the bearing easy. * There are insets for the bottom nuts which both keeps them from spinning out and makes them easier to tighten. * These don't change the height of the extruder or x-axis. * They come with a cool bearing packing tool. These were designed to be easy to print and to fit the nuances of the RapMan. If you want a general purpose pillow block then the front x-axis block is a good place to start. All of the STL files were generated from the OpenSCAD and .dxf files. The .dxf was created with QCad. I also highly recommend replacing the z-axis drive gear with the one at the bottom of this page: http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php?title=Spare_parts and replacing your extruder gears with these: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4650 I haven't gotten these: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4398 to print cleanly yet but they look interesting too. With these pillow blocks and the replacement gears my RapMan is starting to become a reliable and smooth running printing machine. Maybe they should call it the StRapMan.