Looking for Solidoodle 3 aluminum bed support (Page 1 of 2)

My wooden one has visible cracks in the black paint, which suggests that over time it may have sagged or subjected to stress.
As an engineer, I find it hard to believe that an aluminum structural support which appears to be 5-6mm in thickness would be less stable and have less structural integrity than wood which is prone to humidity changes and warpage due to stress. The solidoodle designers must have felt that going to the aluminum version was an improvement right?

Sorry, I'm no help.  I didn't even know they made those out of wood.

-Kevin

Geetech and others still use wood or particle wood. but Im with Knowack the early SD2 used wood but when SD3 replaced the SD2 they were already using Aluminum in the SD2 as I have both wood & aluminum for SD2 and I must say the Wood has held up surprisingly as rough as I have been on it. is this really an SD3 8x8 inch build plate size? thats lots longer leverage than the SD2 6x6 maybe thats why they went Aluminum

OP- If you REALLY want an aluminum platform for an SD3, I will sell you mine. PM me if interested and we can hash out your options.

The other option would be to install some real solid rivets . A whole lot better than pop rivets . IMHO what should have been used at the factory but. as we know 3d printers are often not built to aerospace specifications.

if using rivets use aluminum. nuts and bolts stainless is fine but more expensive to purchase.  any  steel aluminum connection will corode . but only in damp environments usually 3d printers are kept clean and dry.

Ok, so looks like no-one is willing to part with an aluminum SD3 bed support, so I am planning on building one out of 3mm carbon fibre. I have a Solidworks model I made but would like a fully dimensioned sketch of the hole locations if anyone has had theirs apart and dimensioned it.....

Umm..... Yes, I have done my best to measure the key mounting locations with a digital caliper. However, if someone had their bed support out for some reason and happened to accurately dimension it, it would be nice to get a double check.... Having said that I am confident enough that my dimensions are accurate enough to get a quote from a machine shop to have the pieces NC cut from CF sheet.....
The CF bed support project is not a firm "GO", it will depend on the machining cost mostly....
The wooden one is not working badly, it just seems to me to be a bit 18th century....

In the meantime, I have some "fresh" ABS and the test prints are coming off flat and quite accurate. I have a E3D-V6 full metal with bowden ready to assemble and will be installing that shortly. I will be printing off the Lawsy carriages. (anyone have a Slic3R profile for that to reccommend?)
Next upgrades: MK7 extruder - on order, then a 5mm alum bed with Calidum heater....
Then will see how the printing has improved and go from there.

I'm not sure what the issue is with tho holes? The only holes that matter are the ones for the smooth and threaded rod. The rest are up to you since you are having this custom made.  You make the holes where you need them. Now if you are trying to reuse a part from your machine then just use that part and measure it to get the location of the holes. Not sure why you want someone else to tear down and measure their machine to get dimensions that may not even work for you. You are having the part custom made so make it yours and put the holes where you need/desire them.

Is this to get an accurate finished Z height? I did a print of 2 tubes Dia 27.0 x 80.0mm tall with the defauly Slic3R settings of .3 layer and the print measured 80.06 tall, I thought that was pretty good tolerance. Also the dia was very good too - concentricity within 27.0 +/-.01....

So, theoretically the .2963 layer should reduce the height of an 80mm part to ... (80/.3)x.2963 = 79.01? I this a variable I should figure out for my own printer from doing a test part?

the layer heights have more to do with the number & size of the steps of the motors more than the accuracy of the finished part.

because of that 5/16" threaded rod on Z, (Not metric!) the typical metric layer heights of 0.3, 0.2, etc, do not work as well and can lead to weird layers.
Trust me (and the many others that figured all this out prior to me) that the layer heights i gave you above just work better - unless you are going to go to the trouble of swapping out that threaded rod for a metric one. (not really worth the hassle, imho, but it is an option)

this was printed using the 0.2963 layer height.. and it is about as flawless as you are going to get on an SD..