Almost have everything printed to start our build, just have a question about the tubes. I know aluminium tubes are a thing to avoid, so we’ve found a local supplier of 2mm steel pipes, cut to size. I think others have used this wall thickness, so just checking if this is not too thick (heavy).
Now for the real question:
I was wondering if aluminium tubes could be used for the Z axis only. Since we might still change the Z height a couple of times, using aluminium tubes (very cheap here!) for just the Z would help us to not have to request additional steel pipe cut orders every time. Also, the aluminium (we would probably use 1.5mm or 2mm) would be much easier to handle than the steel, talking specifically about cutting and drilling the holes for the tool mount. Finally, it would cut down on the weight of the middle assembly.
Summarizing:
- Very cheap
- Easy to cut, drill, replace with different size
- Lightweight
I’m not sure if the advice “don’t use aluminium tubes” applies mostly to the horizontal tubes only. If not, and the bearings on the Z axis would cause the same problems with aluminium tubes here, I’ll forget the idea and just get the same steel pipes for our Z as well. If it might be OK for the Z, I’ll give that a try: just trying to keep the costs a bit low and flexibility / “experimentability” high as long as the machine is not final.
Thanks!