CTC A13 Bed Bracket / Adapter

thingiverse

I bought a budget-friendly extra printer from eBay and the description mentioned it had an aluminum heated bed. However, when it arrived, I was surprised to find that it contained a miniature MK3 aluminum heat bed about 100mm x 100mm in size and 0.5mm thick Kapton attached to the bottom of a black painted 2mm steel plate over four times its size. The surface also had variations of more than 0.2mm, making it almost impossible to get a good first layer on a print except for about the 100mm square where the tiny little heat bed was underneath. This would not work as a heated bed, so I bought a new aluminum bed measuring 214mm MK3. Unfortunately, I had not considered the fitting of the bed on my A13 printer, which I believe is the same as the Ender 3. The fittings are centered at 117mm, not 209mm as I was expecting for the mk3 I purchased. To solve this issue, I created a small SVG in InkScape to laser cut an adapter plate from 3mm acrylic. This adapter connects to the gantry on my A13 printer and then converts into a 209mm center-spaced mounting system. I have also included an STL of the adapter so it can be printed if required; however, I had no need to print it as I could laser cut it out of acrylic, so the STL is not tested. The additional parts needed for fitting to the existing gantry are: 4 x M3 8mm+ bolts 4 x M3 washers 4 x M3 lock nuts As the holes are designed for M3 and my A13 printer comes with M4, I will also need: 4 x M3 35mm+ bolts 8 x M3 nuts (depending on how I want to secure the bolts on the bed, I always tighten them so there is no lateral movement on the bed, only vertical) I can reuse the existing springs.