Pen Plotting Mount Mod for Ender 3/Ender 3 Pro

This mount is designed to replace the hot end for the Ender 3 and Ender 3 Pro. It can hold pens, pencils, or thin markers and draw on paper connected to the build plate.

To install it, you need to completely remove the hot end and its case from the carriage. The only hardware needed is a short M4 metric screw to hold the writing utensil firm.

To draw with it, change the slicer settings in Ultimaker Cura to use a room temperature nozzle and an unheated print bed. Then use a model that has the same height as a single layer height, this will generate a single layer for the printer to draw. To make sure the utensil will make contact with the paper, home the printer, place the utensil in the holder so that the tip is making contact with the print bed, and then “print” the file.

If, like me, you did this mod because your hot end broke, you will need to replace the thermistor. Otherwise the printer will throw an error and not move when attempting to print. The thermistor can be replaced with a 100kΩ resistor, which will read as a temp of 26 degrees celcius.

To limit damage to the utensil tip, you can comment out the 2 starting purge lines in the gcode before you print.