Anet A8 Push button guide

thingiverse

One of the minor issues with the A8 is that the 5 control push buttons wobble a little in the guide holes, sometimes resulting in a non functioning button press. A previous printable fix was made that you applied behind the acrylic face plate. Then in late 2016 / early 2017 Anet made the guide holes smaller, rendering the printed fix useless, whilst the smaller holes didn't actually fix the problem. My solution effectively makes the buttons slightly thicker and eliminates the problem. The button caps rely on a friction fit. If like mine, one button is smaller by a fraction of a millimetre, I secured the button with a blob of Blu-tack (Tack-It, Plasti-tac, sticky-tac, presstik - the sticky blobby stuff you put posters up with as a kid). Don't glue the button caps on, or you will never get the control circuit board off the acrylic face plate again. The walls of the button are VERY thin and require a little finesse with the slicer. I used Cura 2.3.1 (settings below). The nice thing about this solution is it's another mod you can use to customise the look your printer. I have included the original 123D files if you need / want to experiment. Print Settings Printer: Anet A8 Rafts: Doesn't Matter Supports: No Resolution: 0.1mm Infill: 100% Notes: Because of the thin walls on the button, you need to make quite a few setting changes in your slicer and print it slowly. Cura 2.3.1 settings for 1.75mm PLA Layer height: 0.1mm Wall thickness: 0.4mm Top / bottom pattern: Concentric (not important, I just think it looks good on a round button) Z-seam: shortest or back Infil line distance: 0.4mm Print temp: 200 (but try with your standard for PLA) Bed temp: 50 (but try with your standard for PLA) Print speed: < 50mm/s Post-Printing I printed mine with a z-seam rather than the random. My thinking was any problem with the seam would be easier to remove if it were in a single place. As it turned out, the buttons are not all exactly the same and the tiny seam on a couple of them helped secure the buttons tightly. On the outer edge of the thin shaft wall, any seam must be removed, so it doesn't bind on the acrylic. I used a sharp xacto blade. You could sand it lightly. The side wall is very delicate. It's strong enough for a button, but aggressive sanding will break it. How I Designed This 123D design. Three simple cylinders. It wasn't rocket science. Quite a few test prints to get the friction fit spot on.