A8 X-Carriage for E3D Direct Drive + BL-Touch
Description
This is my second design of an Anet A8 direct drive X carriage, intended to fit an e3d hotend, bltouch, 40mm hotend fan, 40mm part blower, and original MK8 extruder. This revision compiles a lot of ideas I had operating my A8 over the years with my original x-carriage design. That thing (one of my first ever TV uploads, and served me well) can still be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2811789 Design notes: Preventing hotend cooling air from blowing down onto printed parts was my main design goal for this carriage, in order to improve control of part cooling (no more parts being cooled unless I say they should be cooled with the part fan). As you can see from the files, this lead to a lot of complex geometry vs my original design. Regardless, the carriage is just as easy to print, and the goal was accomplished. To help the cooling control even more, I decided to design my own hotend fan duct to go with this. It angles the 40mm fan upward and lifts it further from the printing plane. This reduces unwanted part airflow that happens when a low hanging fan sucks air in. As a bonus, I added stator blades inside the duct, which convert rotational flow into static pressure. This will increase airflow through the restrictive heatsink, and may also look cool if you print in bright colors so it can be seen through a moving fan. ;) Of course, I'm using an e3d, so this duct may fit on other x-carriage designs? Besides improving cooling control, I also tried to make the overall structure stronger and more efficient. There is a lot more meat preventing the hotend from moving around, and the extruder plate is even better supported than before. I spent time adding supports and fillets here and there, to make the whole thing more stout overall I hope without going crazy and adding unneeded weight. To use this thing you will need: 1@ printed x-carriage 1@ printed hotend strap 1@ printed bltouch mount 1@ printed hotend fan duct 1@ printed "mistral" duct (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2121279) 1@ complete e3d hotend (I use a clone v6, with non-clone heatbreak... works great) 1@ stock mk8 extruder (you will need to 'hack' the heatbreak on it) 1@ 3" of PTFE tubing (goes from the hacked mk8 heatbreak to the e3d inlet) assorted M3 and 6-32 bolts/nuts I use a heated enclosure, so printed everything in ABS (w/ 4walls... ie used my "tool" settings). There is no reason you can't get away with other filaments otherwise... but generally it is best to PLA for an x-carriage. I don't want to get too detailed in the assembly, as I think most folks who would be interested in this have lots of experience already with printing on an a8, and can put together how to assemble this with little guidance. There are not really any special steps or tricks that I can think to help with assembly. Well, maybe the bltouch... bolt it to the mount first, then squeeze the assembly into where it goes on the carriage, before installing the hotend. It is a tight fit, but some careful shoehorning will get it home. Try approaching with different angles if you are having troubles here (took me at least 3 tries before I realized it actually would fit without redesigning, lol). The hotend strap fits 6-32 bolts (make em as long as possible so they can't melt out), and the rest of the hardware is M3. The carriage fits 3 standard linear bearing blocks; I used some printed clamping style blocks to make my drylin bearings a bit "stiffer". The bl-touch mount has slots for height adjustment if you need it; I setup mine so the mount is flush with the bottom of the carriage, and that was good enough to use (nozzle ~2mm high @ probe contact).
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