Reinforced Mendel Bed Supports

thingiverse

In my RepRap Mendel, a part of the bearing assemblies in the Y-Axis carriage, which supports the heated bed, broke after enduring months of fatigue. I blogged about this issue here: http://engineeringourfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/10/first-part-to-break-on-my-reprap-mendel.html. The design of the RepRap Mendel includes reinforcement for its parts by using small plastic square beams that hold bolts supporting the print bed. This is achieved by adding a small triangle of support material on one side, which acts as a cantilever to reduce torque. Additionally, the edges underneath are slightly filleted to distribute stress more evenly. These enhancements were derived from Idaholion's SolidWorks models (http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel/SolidWorks), but they aren't correctly aligned to the print surface. Therefore, the individual STL files must be rotated before use; alternatively, you can obtain them from the blender file.