Ender 5 bed support

thingiverse

I really liked this design as it was way less printing than the fully printed options so I remixed this as I thought 8mm ali tube would be more than strong enough and something easily available. Looks nice too as I got some that is anodised. You can get it from most DIY shops in the UK, mine came from Wickes (pic included) I took the merlindrz design, imported into Solidworks and did some remodelling to suit. I found the design seemed to be for a 5mm thick plate for the front support whereas the plate on my Ender 5 is 4mm thick. I thickened up the rear clamp halve that take the tube to have hex sockets for M4 nylocs. sockets for the tubes are modelled at 8.1mm as I made no shrinkage allowance at all. Tubes were very tight fit initially, an 8mm drill (which was loose) must have taken high spots of and fit was then snug but usable. To fit I removed bed assembly, fitted front support piece, the tubes, then the rear clamp halves (which are handed). Then re-fitted the bed and fitted the rear half of the rear clamps. A drawing of the tube length is included. other hardware used are 8x M4 Nyloc, 8x M4x16 skt cap head (pan head be fine), and 8x M4 washers. Only one of the STL files is NOT showing upside down to how I printed it. Clamp halves are printed flat side down, front support printed tube sockets up. Also included is a STEP model for those like me used to solid modelling. Although I used PLA this would be better printed in polycarbonate. I plan to be printing in PC, and hope the front support will not melt from radiated heat !! I plan to heat shield it, to save me taking it all apart again.