Ender3 Z axis lead screw plate replacement

thingiverse

After upgrading my Z-axis to linear rails I discovered that either the back plate had been bent or it wasn't straight in the first place. The original back plate, which holds the lead screw nut, was never completely satisfactory because you have to loosen the nut for smooth motion. This new bracket ensures the nut is square to the Z axis; you can use the same nut as before but tighten it fully into the obvious hole while replacing the stock plate with the printed part. The extruder bracket will be lost, but I'm using a direct drive setup so didn't need it; remixing to add one shouldn't be too difficult. On my printer, everything can be tightened down as tightly as possible and still have the X axis fall under its own weight unless the steppers are energized. You'll likely need an adjustable bracket for the Z-axis stepper, which you can see in the photo. This will allow you to lower the Z axis as low as possible then adjust the position of the Z stepper so it's directly below the lead screw; that way, there will be no bending of the lead screw as it runs. The adjustable bracket I'm using is from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2684832 but anything similar should work. Update - two variants of the main mount have been added, one for the stock lead screw nut and one for replacement circular ones with four mounting holes (these are also slightly wider). An optional side bracket has also been added to mount an extruder for those who haven't converted to direct drive.