I can’t find the post on FaceBook or here. But wanted to ask.
A while back a user reported that the rods inside the linear axis were zinc plated steel rods and his started to flake plating off causing a rough sliding surface.
Question?? Was there any design changes or are the current rods still plated?
We discussed in the post about changing to O1/O2 drill rod material or polished Stainless steel rods to make them hold up longer.
Just looking for some information on this issue.
Thanks.
@khyeung would you happen to know the answer? Or have any other input on potential improvements to the linear rails?
-Atom
I am not a material scientist so i might be wrong. But I highly doubt they are zinc plated.
Zinc is really soft (about 2.5 in Mohr’s scale, and steel is about 5), so it is rare to see zinc plated material used for wear susceptible parts.
By drill rod do you mean the lead screw? This is made usually in steel, because again, it has to be wear resistant. However, a threaded rod might come with zinc plated but this is to fasten and fix parts together. Not to provide rotational-to-axial movement.
The flake that you see/hear about might be just burrs from the aluminum casing, or just the inner paint from the covers? 
Could have been hard chromed. But the pictures were plating that was falling off the 2 rods Inside the linear rail.
Hardened/Ground Drill Rod O1 or O2 would be a good material. I tried to find the post but have not been able to find it again.
I think I found the post you are referring to:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/newsnapmaker/permalink/3479514932061909/
The problem for the OP is that he over tightened the carriage, causing subsequently premature wear. So theoretically it should not be a problem for you if you don’t change anything inside the linear module.
My recommendation: if anything happens, contact support first before DIY
That was it. Items been a while so was curious if this is a problem or not.
Did you notice the last edit of the post? According to that it was a material failure… So perhaps nothing is wrong with most machines…
It was me, I’ll DIY till the day I die though.
Replaced the rails with drill rod, adjusted the tension plus did several other mods to the Y axis and buildplate, my machine is totally custom now and the build plate is solid as a rock with zero vertical movement during direction changes.
Coppertop… I remember. Can you post recent pictures of your mods… thanks
I’ll see what I can do, haven’t taken much of the machine as of late, but I’ve got the extended Y-axis rails that I built the mod for, a second power supply for the external MOSFETT controlled heatbed, 6mm linear rail mounted plate and glass printing surface.
I like you spirit and eventually I will follow your steps of DIYing.
But first i will wait until my warranty is gone…