The Clonedel parts have bushings that are unlike the common PLA counterparts which snap onto rails. These are plastic squares with a giant hole drilled in them. Similar to the ABS bushings, people have been known to put brass sleeves into them for a tighter more uniform fit as there is about 2mm of lag space between the diameter of the drilled hole and the smooth rod. Possibly the only real technical advantage to this is that the bushings on the z-axis are in a more sturdy and in a secure position as they are in complete contact with the smooth support bars. I suppose you could also oil/grease the smooth bars to reduce friction and get a smoother mechanical motion but that shouldn't really be necessary.
For this modification I ordered 12 brass bushings for about $20. They were kind of a pain to find but I was tired, weak, and hungover so I settled on the catalog from
SDP-SI which seemed to have brass sleeves of the measurements I wanted. All in all their prices weren't that bad and they shipped pretty quickly.
However I made a grievous mistake in specifying the measurements for the pieces, the outside diameter is the same as the hole its filling, thus the brass sleeves originally did not fit! To fix this I simply used an 8 inch rounded file and slowly went to work until the brass bushing fit snugly into all 12 pieces, then bound them together epoxy.
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| Left to right, original sized hole, filed, then fully modified bushing |
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| A comparison of how well the new piece fits on the smooth rods |
In hind sight if the brass sleeves were too small then they may not have fit as well, oh well this worked out well in the end anyways.
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