My 525 build has been sitting on its side for a couple years in the basement. Now I’m trying to upgrade to Primo, but I have a hard time sourcing the parts, much harder than 525.
I got the 10mm GT2 pulleys and M5 nylocs from the shop I bought my first printer from, but I have trouble finding the other parts. M5x30 machine screws are most difficult. Home Depot only carries up to M5x25, Lowes and others only sell in packs of 2 to 7 and no one store has 65 all at once. Three maker shops I checked with do not have them in the right length. Fastenal will not do cash sale, no idea about Grainger, and I just cannot find a place in Toronto where I can buy them in boxes of 50 or 100. M2.5 for the endstops I think Sayal has, but #3 screws are nowhere to be found. I have to stick with 5/16 instead of moving to M8 so I can reuse my previous box of 5/16 nylocs, not to mention M8x40 costs more than 5/16x1.5 at HD where I bought them. I also may have to keep my 525 feet and its 6-32 screws so less for me to worry. I also can’t find the exact 10mm GT2 idler, to the point I may have to make do with 6mm idler and not upgrade the belts. Print myself some spacers.
I really miss the 525/Burly composition where parts are easier to get from one big box store run. Now I have to go look for curtain rods or metal shops and order from multiple places, and success is still not for sure.
I need pointers around Toronto.
Belts I can wait until I finalize the size. This time I want to have about 350x200x200mm, sized after the Wanhao i3 I have, but with extra X so I can mill a bezel for my low profile uATX case.
I am surprised you sourced so much locally on the 525, or on this build.
The M5s have some advantages. 1. They are available worldwide. 2. The parts don’t have to straddle between imperial and metric parts. 3. The screws are mostly the same, so it makes it easier to get 65 (or 100) of one kind of screw than several of a few different ones.
The ability of people in North America to find the parts locally is a cost of those improvements. I don’t want to get into your motivation for wanting local cash only parts but I don’t think that is a common priority. Especially when things like the rambo or stepper motors aren’t easy to find either.
When I need many metric screws, I drive a little farther to the Ace hardware. They do have a good selection and reasonable prices on many sizes of metric screws. I don’t know how much of that ends up in Toronto though.
I’ve been buying my screws, bolts, and nuts from boltdepot.com.
Bags of 100 are a good enough deal for me, and for some reason I always end up needing a bolt or two for odd projects. And I think that even with shipping is better than buying 7 at a time at lowes, but check it out and see how it adds up for you.
They’ve always shipped me fast and accurately.
I did go to the local nut and bolt specialty supply for the M5 hardware. We may be nominally a metric country, but metric fasteners and lumber are pretty scarce. I found bearings at a skate shop cheaper than Amazon on sale, but it was fall, and during pandemic. Amazon quickly became cheaper again.
When I looked, one option is C$22 for 25, another C$7.78/100, but I won’t be able to get that until 8/12. But they do have counter service where permitted and allow guest checkout. Looks like the perfect solution, ha!
(Grainger lists some M5 nylocs for as low as 2 cents each, but stainless is still 6 cents. Looks like my little goto shop has a good deal on those nylocs - they are stainless.)
