Bulking up the printed motor mounts because sheet metal is too expensive.

Alright, so. Sheet metal adds about $250 to my costs, so I cannot do sheet metal for these motor assemblies. But that’s fine, I don’t need it.

I started by going back to the blocky version. I extended out the tall bit so that there is more material over the bearing and idler shaft for strength.

Then I actually started making the walls thicker for more material/bracing. Because the end of the part is constrained to 30mm, I need that little divot on the front right.

I did the same to the opposite side and brought the curves back! These curves look pretty nice.

They start out matching but then the front one diverges into its own thing.

It was at this point I realized my walls were now thick enough to utilize the 4th screw hole on the motor. This will help a lot with making everything more rigid.

On the initial version I wasn’t able to use this hole because I was optimizing for the entire part to be 30mm wide rather than just the end of it. This would have been fine, but this new bulkier appraoch is just better.

Lastly, I added mounting. I added one M5 screw on the rear vertical wall that will actually use a T nut to bolt to the vertical extrusion, while I also added top holes (and unseen bottom holes) for M5 heat inserts for the top/bottom plates to bolt to. This forms a printed and metal sandwich, which is great for rigidity.

Integrated into the assembly, it looks great! It kinda bothers me that the screw holes are off center but I might be able to fix that later.

That’s motor assemblies done. Yay! I just need to do idlers/tensioners and the “core” of the printer will be done.