8x10 Plate Glass Clips by laird

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

For printing, glass is an ideal surface because it's extremely flat, and stays that way. But custom glass sizes are expensive special orders, while 8x10 plate glass is cheap and easy to purchase.
My printers (Replicator and FlashForge) have roughly 6x9 print beds. And it turns out that 8x10 plate glass works perfectly. Unfortunately it's tricky to hold glass larger than the print bed in place, because you have to use large binder clips, and the extruder can run into the clips. And you can only clip down two edges, because the other two edges stick way out.
So I've designed these clips that fit on the corners of the print bed, extending it so that it holds standard 8x10 plate glass. The edges of the clips are thin, so you can use small binder clips.
There are quite a few similar clips on Thingiverse, which inspired me to design my own. The main difference is that it's Customizable so it's easy to generate clips for different printers with similar designs. And it has thin edges, which allows using small binder clips.
Warning: Glass can Break


One caveat - $1.99 plate glass is 3/32" thick, so it's not as durable as thicker, more expensive glass. But in my experience, as long as the glass is flat on the print bed or other surface, it's supported and won't break. But if you try to pull prints off of glass while holding it in your hand, it can easily break. So don't do that.
You can also get 8x10 sheets of plexiglass, wood, etc., which can be useful to print on, depending on what you're printing with.
Z-Adjust


You'll probably want to use something like http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:43783 to adjust the Z-stop. The details vary by specific printer.
What to print


I have a MBI Replicator (original) and a FlashForge Pro, so I have attached STL files for those printers. Print two each of the Left and Right parts.
If you use a slicer that generates support, you can use the NoSupport STL files. The other files include support in the design.
It's also Customizable, so you can put in measurements for other similar printers.