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moving right along, after taking the protective film off the big sheets. 99% of the laser cut parts came right out, there were some spots that needed a little extra force. no big deal. The quality looks good. No parts look skewed from my naked eye.

looks intimidating ehh....

There was only one spot in the laser cutting that was slightly off. shown here but nothing a little sanding can't fix. Didn't look like it was drawn correctly. not laser related. All of the other axle supports were good.

about an hour later, i'm officially rostock initiated. Maybe I shoulda worn gloves. There were a couple of spots where the outline of the counter sink holes were not centered. hmmm now to start base assembly.. whewww.. time for a dinner break.. more to come...

It looks like you are missing #68324 - the hotend spacer. Make sure you don't accidentally toss it!

Found it...Good eye, it was under the pile of discarded parts..

See, we do pay attention!

FYI, sanding the edges with a dremel gets rid of most of the burnt wood smell. My acrylic kit had a few wooden parts.

Wow! Maybe that's why my build only took a little over 8 hours! That sounds like a lot of work. I just used an old towel and wiped off the char. Worked fine, kept my hands from turning black and I didn't notice the fragrance!

More progress. I did have to lightly sand some holes out for the nuts to fit properly but not all were like that. Some fit perfectly, some holes loose.

Had to do some minor sanding to get some of the tabs to fit. Took me a few minutes to get the top of the base lined up but I got done. Definitely not designed for ease of assembly but so far no major hiccups. Moving right along with genebs assembly guide. The off center countersunk holes weren't lining up but didn't effect assembly too much, just aesthetics.

Next stepper motor installation.

These stepper motors didn't have a flat for the set screw so off to the grinder I went. Here is the result.
This will help keep the pulley anchored to the stepper motors shaft. From previous experiences in cnc machines this is a must

Next I loctited all the screws for the stepper motors and the set screws for the pulleys.

I started putting in the slot nuts for the extrusion and installed the bearings in there places. Installed the power supply.
So far still going smoothly with assembly. I then started putting together the cheapskates. This took the most time thus far because the u-joints required quite a bit of sanding to get them to spin freely. Then called it a night.

Make sure when you put the black plastic things (i forget what they are called) on the cheap skates you put the hole for the endstop screws on the same side. That way the screws will be the same for all of the cheap skates. Just cosmetic really but when you bend the tabs on the switches they will all be bent the same way.
Worst part is over, peeling the tape off of everything sucked.

cambo3d wrote:Next stepper motor installation.

These stepper motors didn't have a flat for the set screw so off to the grinder I went. Here is the result.
This will help keep the pulley anchored to the stepper motors shaft. From previous experiences in cnc machines this is a must

You do this free hand because of your experience, do you have any tips on how to make the flats for those of us who are not so experienced?
I would hate to screw up a good stepper. The whole process of touching the shaft to a grinding wheel make me nervous and at 61 I don't have
the most steady hand. Any tips would be appreciated.

Eaglezsoar wrote:

cambo3d wrote:Next stepper motor installation.

These stepper motors didn't have a flat for the set screw so off to the grinder I went. Here is the result.
This will help keep the pulley anchored to the stepper motors shaft. From previous experiences in cnc machines this is a must

You do this free hand because of your experience, do you have any tips on how to make the flats for those of us who are not so experienced?
I would hate to screw up a good stepper. The whole process of touching the shaft to a grinding wheel make me nervous and at 61 I don't have
the most steady hand. Any tips would be appreciated.

You an do it with a handfile in a vice, but I would put some tape over the front and back of the motor to stop any filings getting into the bearings.

I haven't done the stepper mod myself. Is there any concern with the radial force of filing/grinding the shaft damaging the stepper?

MorbidSlowBurn wrote:I haven't done the stepper mod myself. Is there any concern with the radial force of filing/grinding the shaft damaging the stepper?

If you do it in a vice there is none, since the thing held in the vice is the shaft.
having said that I doubt unless you use a lot of force the radial load is going to hurt the stepper when using a grinder. The much bigger issue is keeping any filings out of the bearings.

I haven't bothered on mine, IME as long as the screws are tight, the pulleys don't slip, and experience tells me that screws on a flat are just as likely to come loose are screws on a shaft, so I'd use loctite on either.

Thanks polygonhell. I don't plan on doing the mod. I just envision someone placing the stepper body in the vice not the shaft and damaging the stepper. Just trying to get the complete info out there and didn't want to comment directly on damaging the stepper as I am not familiar with their resiliency to side loading.

I like the vice idea. I have some electrical putty to put around the bottom of the shaft to prevent filings going into the bearing.
Clamp the shaft in the vice and use the file. I'll leave the grinder to those of you more experienced. Thanks for the vice - file idea.

My technique: wrap the stepper in masking tape to seal it. Use a dremel with a small grinding wheel to make a flat on the shaft - hand hold the stepper. It isn't rocket science and you are not putting much force on the shaft. You don't need a huge flat either.

I've been out fishing all day today.

Doing the flats on the stepper shafts isn't hard. I just used my grinder and kept even pressure on it, till i got a nice even flat.
few minutes could save a lot of trouble later on. Keeps the pulley from slipping on the shaft of the stepper.

Thanks for the idea, I"m going to try the file method as suggested by some others.. Hope you caught some fish!

After a full day of fishing I came back and continued working on the rostock.

I caught two of these both over 20lbs which put up a mean fight for a good 20-30minutes. So on with the build. I finished up the cheap skate roller bearings. I had forgotten to put all the washers in place. so I went back in redid those too. Reminded me to look at the assembly pdfs again just to make sure I had everything installed correctly. Exploded diagram parts assembly helped a lot. bye the way, if you dont know where to find these here is the link http://seemecnc.org/download/RostockMAX/Assembly/

If you haven't noticed already, i'm not exactly following along in geneb's manual.

I like the black bearing covers. They would go good with my black machine.

more progress today. Starting to look like a rostockmax.
found a cozy spot to mount the rambo, the holes were already there. Actually You probably have to mount it here because the wires for the lcd aren't long enough to reach the other side.

I like that. If you move the LCD door to the spot between the X and Y towers you will not have any problems putting the Add-A-Struder kit between the Y and Z towers since that door will not need to be accessed. Do all of the partitions have these mounting holes in your kit?

mhackney wrote:I like that. If you move the LCD door to the spot between the X and Y towers you will not have any problems putting the Add-A-Struder kit between the Y and Z towers since that door will not need to be accessed. Do all of the partitions have these mounting holes in your kit?

looks like all of them have these holes. probably an update to the design. that needs updating in the manual also.