Tablet Mount for the Creality Ender 3

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

This is a simple tablet mount for the Creality Ender 3, and also the Creality Ender 3 Pro.
I have a Raspberry Pi inside my Ender 3 with OctoPi, and I had this old tablet lying around, so I thought to put it on the 3d Printer with Printoid in order to control OctoPrint without having to turn on my computer. This tablet is pretty old and slow, and in the future I'm going to replace it, that is why I made it like a modular design so it can fit almost every tablet, smartphones and also hdmi display you can connect to the Raspberry Pi itself. I think this is a nice add on the printer, so it will also look more "smart". And since it is android, you can also install some games on it so you can play while the printer is printing! I didn't put sides on the pieces, so if your tablet is taller than mine it will fit on without problems. If you see that it slides on in (I know that the PLA is slippery) you can put a bit of double sided tape between the tablet and the piece like I did so it won't fall off.
The model is made in order to allow any size of tablet and smartphone to sit on top of it, it just needs to be at least 12cm tall to not fall down, and 13cm large so the build plate knob won't hurt it, and 11mm thick to fit inside the piece.
The left side (black piece in the photo) is mounted on the bottom left 4040 aluminium profile (you may need to thread the holes to put the screws, I forgot that they weren't threaded when I finished printing it, but a little M4 screw and a lot of patience will make the job). On my printer I don't have anymore the board there, but you can mount it on top of the metal case of the board without any problems, you just have to check if the metal case have the right holes (I don't have it anymore so I cannot see it). It has a simple mount: you just have to use the stock screws and screw them into the 4040.
The right side (green piece in the photo) is a bit modular and adjustable. It uses the 2040 profile on the Ender 3, or the 4040 on the Ender 3 Pro, where the Y-axis slides in order to be easly mounted. It is made of two pieces:
the profile mount (called AggancioBinario.stl) is made to slide into the profile from the little gap there is in front of the printer under the Y-axis belt in front of the printer, and it has a really strong hold into the groove. It has a "sliding hole" where you can fit a M4 screw in, in order to adjust the height and the angulation of the other piece;
the right side mount, where the tablet will sit on, has a hole for a M4 nut (it has a tight fit, you may need to apply a bit of force in order to slide it in). You can use this nut and the screw in the other piece in order to adjust this piece so the tablet will fit on it perfectly. You can see it in one of the photos.
Maybe in the future I will make the left side also modular in the same way of the right, so you can adjust the tablet in the way you like it. But at the moment I ran out of filament, so I cannot print it in order to try it before uploading.
Let me know if you like it, if you print one yourself (maybe upload a
photo, I'll really appreciate it!), and also consider checking the other
stuff I make on my profile. I'm still learning how to model things, but
I have lots of ideas and I'll upload them soon!
If you also want to make a tip to me, I will really appreciate it, and
I'll think about continue making this stuffs 'cause I will know that
someone likes my design!