ENDERfruit - Ender 3 to Heat Insert Press Conversion

thingiverse

These are some parts to print (and probably lasercut one) to convert a classic Ender 3 v1 to a Heat Insert Press.A lot of old Ender 3s seem to be dying lately. I was going to build the Adafruit heat set insert press.https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3613621But I wanted to use Ender 3 wheels and screws and such - because I have a dead Ender 3 to scavenge parts off of. Graciously, Adafruit included a STP file with their kit. So I started mofiying it to work with the parts I had... and pretty soon it became a game of modifying a few of the Adafruit parts to fit an Ender 3 frame.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R3515SFI already had that soldering iron. I bought it specifically for heat inserts. It goes down to 180 degrees - which is a good temp for pressing into PLA. My knock-off Hakko soldering station has a knob marked down to 225. Also this iron has a silicon sleeve on the handle which is nice for mounting it into a 3D printed backet. Grips tight.There are 10 or 12 m3 x 8mm screws on the carriage. There are intended to be used with heat press inserts that are ~4,25mm OD.There are 12 or maybe 16 m4 x 8m screws and m4 t-nuts. Probably more than you can scavenge out of an Ender 3 - but that you might have around anyway. Otherwise it uses all stock Ender 3 parts and screws.You'll probably want to cut out some plywood for the work surface. There's a template to laser cut it you have the means. I'm using 1/4" plywood and it seems to work fine.The balast holder is for a counterweight for the soldering iron. I filled it up with m3 nuts and it's alright. I tightened the eccentric nut on the carriage so there's some resistance and that plus the weight of the nuts is enough to make it stay where i put it. It doesn't try to return to its home position every time I let go of it. The holder didn't have a part to connect a belt to, so I make a little printable hook for that. Attaches to the cup with a m3 x 8mm screw (and insert).I cut one end off of the belt and thread it through the loop on the soldering iron side, and then through the loop on the cup, and then zip-tied it back to itself so the teeth interlock. I actually used one of the zip-ties that came with an Ender 3. I'm serious about using as much Ender 3 stuff as I could.I included the STP file so you could adapt it to your particular hardware. For example, I'm not sure what Ender 3 Pro related changes would alter this setup.https://imgur.com/a/hPBAsMP