December 21, 2023
Description
This is my enclosure I've designed for my Prusa MK4 printer. It's built using an aluminum extrusion with a 1" x 1" profile (EX-1010) which is available from Tnutz online. You can order from them cut to your exact measurements and have them tap the ends for ¼-20 thread that I used for these outside corner blocks that tie it all together. This is incredibly strong when it is all screwed together. For this build, I used:
All the parts were printed using PETG in the Prusa colors using their product Prusament-Prusa Orange and Prusament-Jet Black.
The small 5" cube in photo was completely printed, I used PETG for the orange outside corner blocks and gray PLA for the EX-1010 extrusion profile which were printed vertically 3" tall. The ex-1010 profile in the files can be scaled in the Z axis to any length in your slicer, I had to use the Brim option to ensure they wouldn't fall over (it happened once while printing 4 of them 3" tall).
The large cube in the pictures is my printer enclosure which measure 22" wide, 24" deep and 24" high (outside frame measurements). It is completely trimmed out using various corners and side trim pieces. The trim is all designed using .118" think acrylic plexiglass, the doors and hatch are using ¼" acrylic plexiglass. It has 2 double front doors (the doors will clear the LCD since I used EX-1030 in that lower bottom which is 1" x 3"), there is a hatch door that is mounted to the middle extrusion on the top, this also makes the top more rigid if you need to set something on top of the enclosure.
The outside corner cubes that connect the 3 extrusion pieces together need to be printed using “supports-everywhere” because of the overhangs and large holes and tight tolerance of the part. Used .2mm layer, structure profile, 3 perimeters, 5 top, 5 bottom, 100% infill.
The FrameCorner part is used to cover the edge of the plexiglass and has the 0.118" recess to accept the plexiglass and hold it tight against the aluminum extrusion. The FrameCornerGlass part is used in the upper corners of the doors and front of the top hatch and has a square inside corner so the doors plexiglass don't need the corners cut off of them.
I printed the Tnuts using PLA and #8-32 hex nuts using Tnut-8h in the files, or you can use the square nuts using Tnut-8s. I used at least 4 Tnuts per side of the aluminum extrude to secure the corner/trim pieces, hinges and have further Tnuts to mount stuff of the interior of the enclosure.
The hinges (PETG) were printed in place with a tolerance of 0.010" for the cylinder gap and 0.015" for the pin gap. The pin of the hinge is ¼". Using PLA I was able to reduce the gaps even further during testing.
Some of the hardware you will need are:
I'm still finishing up the enclosure design so I will add more to it shortly. Please message me if you're interested in duplicating this as I may be able to help with the correct ordering of materials.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial
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