Ikea LOTS mirror bed bracket for CR-10 with cable strain relief by ozfunghi

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Brackets for the CR-10 that conveniently fit Ikea LOTS mirrors (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/39151700/) to the bed, so you can easily swap mirrors out, remove them from the bed (for cleaning, removing a print, or if you have different mirrors with different adhesion sollutions (glue, tape, hairspray, PEI...) etc) and without needing the clips, which may bend the mirror down when the aluminum bed is warped underneath.
After finding out the hard way that the stock glass plate that comes with the printer is rubbish (bent to hell and back), i decided to buy the cheap Ikea mirrors that people have been using. They are 300 by 300 mm, so they fit the CR-10 bed. But since they are 10 mm smaller than the actual bed, that meant the brackets i originally designed for use with the stock glass plate (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2525325), wouldn't work with the mirrors anymore. So i had to alter them, so they would fit the mirrors between them.
There is a strain relief for the cable in the left back corner. Parts are best printed in ABS, 0.2mm layer height, with supports. Be careful removing the supports so you don't snap the top part off. I printed it with only 1 wall, but 100% infill diagonal lines. I felt it made the top part sturdier that way, since the infill lines covered more surface.
If the plastic part from the Z stepper motor is sticking out a bit, you may want to shave that a little. The bed brackets are as thin as they should be (thinner and they would not be sturdy enough) and should easily pass the frame without slamming into it. But the yellow Z stepper bracket stuck out a bit on my printer.
Ideally you'd print the regular corner bracket 3 times, but maybe you can get away with only the strain relief and one regular bracket in the diagonally opposing corner. The strain relief has four holes for zip ties. If the cap falls off, you can loop the zip tie from underneath around the top.
PRINTING ON MIRROR
I you are having difficulties printing on mirror (with PLA), make sure the mirror is clean. I recommend cleaning the surface with REGULAR handsoap. Nothing fancy or aggressive, just handsoap. Rinse with a LOT of water.
I have also tried with special cleaning products (because i thought they would make the mirror even cleaner than regular soap) but these products also seem to leave a trace, a thin film, a microscopic layer of chemicals, which in turn will make the plastic NOT stick.
If you have leveled the bed and the distance is not too far or too close, the PLA should stick very well. I recommend printing a skirt around your objects slowly, and pull the skirt with your fingernail while printing, to see if the skirt sticks to the mirror. If it doesn't stick, you can still rectify the situation and level the bed a bit closer, if you are printing your skirt slow enough.
When the mirror has cooled off, the print should come off easily. As long as the mirror is still hot, this will be a lot harder. If you need to take the print off as fast as possible, and can't wait for it to cool off, just put it under the faucet and cool it down with water.