Aluminum Extruder Cable Support (Ender 3 + Others)

thingiverse

This is a cable support for aluminum extruders based on the one designed by bkvines. I had been using his design on a HICTOP Aluminum Extruder that I bought for my Ender 3. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0761PGLZ4 There are a number of those kind of aluminum extruders out there and from what I can tell all of them seem to be pretty much the same. His support worked great for me until I added a EZABL Auto Bed Level to my Ender 3. At that point the cabling was too thick to be able to secure it. Had it not been for that I'd still be using his support. This support is using his design for the half that attaches to the extruder. I only wound up changing the tie side of it to accommodate the additional cabling. This support attaches directly using the screw belonging to the extruder. Cables are attached to it with a small zip tie that should slide right through it the slot. The screw hole on the originalv bkvines design wound up being small enough to screw the M3 screw into in lieu of using a nut. Some of the aluminum extruders seem to have the screw oriented that way, so I decided to leave it that way. My extruder is the opposite of that, so I widened the hole out with a drill bit (using a 1/8" bit since I haven't bought any metric drill bits yet). If I get ambitious I might widen the screw hole in the design and include a second STL (but this was easy enough and worked well so I probably won't). I kept with the spirit of bkvines original keeping this a quick print without the need for supports. Like the original design, this one prints in under 10 minutes (even with a higher infill). I printed it with PLA at a 50% infill, although I'm pretty sure you could get by with less. It didn't really add much to print time or material use since the part is small. bkvines has a video link that shows installation of his. Installation of this is the exact same, only with the zip tie running through the slot instead.