Anet A6 Bed Adjustment Knob

thingiverse

On the back of my last mod, I decided to make a significant change to my Anet A6 Frame Secure. Due to the fact that I use a glass plate and was getting tired of having to unclip the glass every time I needed to adjust the bed height, I opted for bottom adjustment instead of relying on the screws on top. A little side note about the standard aluminum hotplate is that it's not level. Remove it from your printer and place a straight edge across the diagonal corners - there's a noticeable depression in the middle. So if you adjust the corners perfectly, the central area will have a much larger gap, approximately 0.3mm compared to the 0.1mm you set at the corners. By switching to a glass bed, you'll achieve a consistent gap across the entire bed. Again, there are many similar projects out there that didn't quite meet my expectations, so I decided to design something from scratch. This project involves creating custom parts, and I took careful measurements of the areas that may come close to the adjusters, ensuring they're as large as possible. This should be suitable for an A8 printer as well; however, you'll need to verify the clearances yourself since I don't have access to one. I chose a 5-pointed star design to allow for easy adjustment with plenty of finger space. In fact, this design works so nicely that you can adjust with one hand while checking the gap with your other hand. When the points are set to stick out the furthest, they clear all the body work by a good 1-2mm. The size of the nut and the hole for the screw are intentionally snug, ensuring the nut won't fall out. I've included a picture showing how I inserted the nuts into the knob using the nuts and bolts that came off the heated bed. To install this mod, you'll need to drill out the threaded section of the H bracket that secures the bed. The thread diameter is 2.8mm; I started by drilling it at 3mm but found it tended to bind a little, so I opened it up to 3.5mm and the bed moves perfectly freely. To ensure proper installation, secure the original screw tightly to the heated bed with a nut. If you don't do this, when adjusting the knob, the screw will spin, and no adjustment will be made. This mod prints fine using Cura 2.3.1 or the Repetier slicer from Cura, with print settings as follows: Printer: Anet A6 Rafts: Doesn't Matter Supports: No Resolution: 0.2 Infill: 20% Notes: I chose four perimeters for extra strength, but it's not really necessary since the material around the screw holes isn't under great strain.