Anet A8 Y-Axis Idler & Motor Brace Upgrades

thingiverse

These braces represent my attempt at improving some of the already excellent Anet A8 parts provided here on Thingiverse. The braces I have seen previously have some features that make using several of the belt tensioner upgrades difficult to impossible. You can see in some of my photos that it was an iterative process for me as I had to file some grooves out of the idler brace gussets to provide clearance for installing the required hardware. The models that have been uploaded have been revised to reflect what I learned. My goal was to design these in such a way as so they could be printed with little to no support material. I chose to use support material when printing the parts shown in the photos for cleaner surfaces. The supports were easy to remove and left clean features. I also wanted to provide a way to fasten the machine down to a rigid structure to prevent movement or misalignment of the printers frame. The holes provided were sized for common #10 wood screws as I plan to use MDF as a base. Another aspect of the idler brace is that it completely replaces the original component, rather than being installed in front of the original, and consequently does not reduce the y-axis travel distance as with previous designs. I also tried to keep aesthetics in mind when designing these and my final goal was improve the rudimentary features from previous designs. So many of the free or open source modeling packages limit the level of refinement designers can bring to their models. I hope these help everyone make the most out of the best cheap 3D printer around. Enjoy!