Squashed frog replacement for repraps: parametric , printable

thingiverse

This is one more element that used a big "vitamin" (non printed part)in my reprap that i wanted to replace. The squashed frog is the part that is underneath the Y axis platform, and to which the belt as well as the bushings/bearings rolling on the rails are attached. The initial version was cut manually from plexiglass, but due to my lack of good quality tools/workspace, while it worked , it certainly would not have won prizes for quality ! So i decided to design a printable version, that had to :be mechanically resistant enoughbe relatively fast to printbe made of more than one part since it needed to be as big if not bigger than the maximum print sizehave mounting point for the bushings as well as the belt clamps So this is the solution i came up with:it is made of 3 parts , two of which are identicalit requires 4 nuts and bolts to be assembledthe inner holes with roundings enable the parts to be strong yet not use too much plasticit is relatively fast to build and easy to assemble *it works well ! I have yet to test it with a heated build platform but i am not too worried, because if the printed bushings of people using a hbp don't melt, then there is no reason for this to melt :) Very important : it uses the great bolted pla bushings by Griffin Nicoll available here : http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7157 Instructions IMPORTANT ! all parameters are tuned for my specific machine, so they most likely won't work for your specific needs! Please use the openscad file to generate the parts to the correct size. These are the most important things to change: -platform_mount_x_distance: how far from the center should the mounting holes for the platform be -platform_mount_y_distance: how far apart from each other should the mounting holes for the platform be -smooth_rod_distance : distance between the Y axis smooth rods (from rod center to rod center) All parameters related to your bolted bushings , and belt clamps You will need to print two sides (i made the left/right sides seperate, but they really are the same part) , and one center element, then just assembled it all with nuts & bolts.