Ender 5 Professional Bed Support Brackets by Bunkey

Last crawled date: 3 years, 3 months ago

There are a few 3D-printable bed supports out there already for this machine that offer an accessible way for hobbyists to further support the print bed.
I myself have invested in 3D printing technology as a means of rapid prototyping for competitive motorsport applications, as well as various other engineering avenues that I dabble in; integrating the FFF process into my production workflow.
As an independent entrepreneur without any real financial backing, I'm forced to be as resourceful as possible with the equipment I invest in. The Ender 5 variants are an incredibly powerful tool in this sense but for what they offer in terms of economy, they obviously need a little further modification in order to achieve the level of precision I require in my work.
Z-axis bed support is paramount here as the bed's deflection is visibly noticeable during printing manoeuvres as well as when simply trying to set the bed level using a sheet of paper as a feeler gauge.
The existing options for slip-on brackets are innovative and useful but in order to fully mitigate the issue as far as is reasonably possible within the constraints of this particular Z-axis design, a completely fixed support bracket is necessary.
I have designed these brackets to allow the use of readily available M6 threaded rod and spherical bearings to properly support the bed. The brackets, like others, clamp to the lowest portion of the linear rod bearing and securely locate this threaded rod assembly to form a solid fixed position A-frame with the bed chassis. The result is a print bed with no deflection other than that present in the Z-axis bearings. It is night and day in comparison to both the standard unsupported bed and the popular slotted bed supports.
You are required to drill a 6mm hole in either side of the chassis to fix these supports but this single bolt fixing is a great balance of strength, weight, economy and simplicity; its implementation is well achievable by anyone who occupies a similar field of practical application.
It also looks purposeful which is of more importance than it really should be when used in a professional environment!
The required parts are:
2x 125mm M6 threaded rods (available here as a single 250mm length cut in half)
4x M6 spherical rod-end bearings (M6 eye x 9mm to locate snugly in the bracket)
4x M6 standard nuts
4x M6 x 30mm bolts (~10mm bolt head OD)
10x M6 washers (12mm OD)
4x M6 Nyloc nuts
8x M4 x 15mm bolts (<7.5mm bolt head OD)
8x M4 Nyloc nuts
This looks like a lot written down but it all cost me less than £15 on Amazon including 316-grade stainless hardware.
The quality of the spherical bearings used is a key factor as any slop or play in this interface can potentially limit the effectiveness of the design.
With that said, I've used a cheap option here (links below) and the bearings themselves are satisfactory with a negligible amount of play.
I've included a txt file in the downloads with detailed assembly instructions should you wish to have this to hand.
I would highly recommend reading these instructions as there are key details which will make the assembly process much easier and more effective.
It's important to assemble the supports with a bit of compression present on the rod assemblies when everything is tightened up, to prevent poor tolerances in the bearing translating into excess deflection of the bed when weight or inertial forces are applied.
Spherical Rod-End Bearings: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07JFNB9BD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
M6 Threaded Rod: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B078H7JCR8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I'm very grateful for how open and helpful the online 3D printing community is and I hope these support brackets might be useful to some of you.
I offer this bed support design and its plans as free to download and implement for personal & professional use but please respect the fact that this is my intellectual property. I do not consent to plagiarism or to reproduction of this design - commercial or otherwise - without first consulting with me to arrange a licensing agreement / License of Right.
If you're interested in some of the things I do, or in supporting my work, check out: https://www.c1autoworks.com/about - This is a new venture for me and I would really appreciate all the help I can get.
Thanks,
Ben.