All it is is a huge 3D parallel bar of the sort you used to find attached to rooms full of drafting tables in any engineering or architecture school on the planet.
The parallel bar always had a little plastic cover over it so that you wouldn't get your fingers or tie tangled in the cable crossing in the middle.
It's idiotically simple. Just my style! :-D
Just like a parallel bar you can raise or lower the whole x-axis bridge with a two fingers. When I rig the other side of the x-axis bridge I suspect that you will be able to use one finger. You can see that white bar of PTFE that I have supporting it over on the drive (left) side of Godzilla. There's not enough friction in the rig to keep in in place. No big deal.
You gave up too soon on cabling, Ed! It works great, you just have to keep it simple. :-)
I installed the cabling and pulleys on the back side and I can indeed now lift it with one finger.
Of course, I can also straight arm 50 lb bags of horse cubes with left hand, too, so maybe that doesn't mean a whole lot. I learned that little trick 5-6 years ago when I broke my right forearm in 8 pieces and all the same had to look after a hungry appaloosa who didn't want to hear about sick and looking after his own breakfast and sanitary arrangements. Fortunately, the hardware that they screwed all the bits too was pretty much non-ferrous and doesn't set off airport metal alarms.
In any case, the x-axis bridge is balanced much more evenly now. The additional cabling put a little more resistance in the system so that when I let go of it it descends slowly by itself. I expect that once I hook up the thrust collar on the threaded drive rod it will stay put at whatever level I decide to park it at.
Motors in the morning and maybe a design charrette on that piston driven filament extruder that Vik has developed a hankering for till the new PICs and parts come in. :-)
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