Why?
I've been 3D printing for a few months now and since the beginning, printing at night was always a pain in my A. The problem was that I couldn't check on the prints when I was laying on my bed, I should have to go to the printer every time, turn on the room lights, and then I'd be able to see the print. So I decided to make this upgrade for my printer.
Main Parts
This LED lighting upgrade consists of 6 main parts.
- The light bar
- The left and right V-Slot adapters
- The left and right angle makers.
- The Switch box
The light bar is the long U-shaped part that will be holding the LED strip. it's designed for the standard 12mm aluminum LED strips but any smaller strip is also usable, just like what I did.
You can also use a commercial metal LED holder but you may need to customize the left and right angle maker.
The V-Slot adapter is used to connect the light bar to the top profile of the Z-axis.
The angle maker parts are used to hold the light bar and also make it able to rotate about 40°.
The switch box will be installed where the Z-axis V-slot is connected to the main frame V-slot.
The LED Strip
For the LED strip, I chose an old LED strip that I had laying around. It has a nice warm color and most importantly, it's not very bright. As I said before, I didn't want to make my room light up when using this light bar, I just wanted to brighten the printer.
The Z-Axis Limit
One very important note while using this upgrade is to make sure that you pay attention to the Z-axis limit after installing the light bar.
In my case, my printer has a Z height of 400mm, but when I install the light bar, the Z height will reduce to 390mm, because the print head will ram into the light bar if it exceeds the 390mm limit. so make sure to keep that in mind.