Planar Shock Absorber by zx82net

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

I designed this shock absorber structure which is rigid in the vertical direction, but allows horizontal motion. The idea is, it absorbs the lateral forces generated by your printer's motion, without allowing your printer to rock about, which can mess up your print quality.
The weight is taken by four rigid pillars with spherical ends, and the elasticity is provided by a flexible harness which surrounds the ends of the pillars, and acts as a spring to provide the centering force. The spherical ends to the pillars mean the top and bottom surface stay the same distance apart when the damper moves, preventing any bounce in the vertical direction.
There is also a thin pad which you can print separately in your flexible filament, this will prevent the base slipping and marking your table.
I'm using four of these under my Flash Forge Creator Pro, and I have seen no negative impact on the print quality, and it shakes the bench about less than it did before. The default size is 40mm square with a height of 28mm. If you print it larger you will get a softer mount. If you want it stiffer, use two or more of them next to each other. I wouldn't recommend printing it smaller, for practical reasons.
To be honest, this is a very challenging print, but it's fun. You need a dual extruder and you need to print flexible filament and rigid filament at the same time, I used TPU and PLA. Start by making sure the two models are aligned, the coordinates in the stl's are correct relative to each other, but some slicers will drop both models to the table. If so, reset the offsets to zero and group the two models together. You need full supports in the volume between the plates. I recommend using your rigid filament for the supports, even though you are supporting the flexible material. The different material makes them separate quite easily. Alternatively, you could possibly print it with flexible supports and just leave them in there, but I've not tried that.
One of the trickiest aspects is getting the first layers of the rigid columns sticking well to the flexible layer below them. It took some trial and error with PLA and TPU, other combinations may be easier. I recommend recording a time lapse video and inspecting it to see if the bases stayed in place, or whether they got pulled out on another pass of the head. For me, the trick was getting the two extruders dead level.
An ooze shield and a prime pillar are essential.