Today's topic is all about bed mounts. Should you use a spring? What about these
upgraded orange springs about these silicone bed mounts? What about these solid aluminum ones?
This topic in particular only applies if you're using an auto bed leveler. I have used all of
these and have drawn some conclusions about all of them in my testing. There's a reason why
I am still using these special orange spring ones. Now, when you're using an auto bed leveler, your
first thought might be to move over to a solid bed mount because you don't need to adjust the bed
nearly as much as you did before when you used an end stop. There is a problem
with the various ways in which you can mount your bed solidly with these.
We're going to start off with probably one of the more easily accessible options, these
silicone ones. Now, these are nice and solid and they have a little bit of squish to them. If you
need to make some very minute adjustments, that is great because they allow you to do that. However,
the problem is, once they get squished and stay in a squished position for a while,
they no longer retain any of that memory or elasticity to bounce back to its original
shape. You'll actually notice the shape of these silicone bed mounts are actually mushroomed.
That's a problem because you're going to lose the level of your bed constantly.
That's a pain in the butt because you bought something solid so that the bed wouldn't change
its position and here you are with a solid bed mount that is fact-changing position.
That a little bit of adjustment that you get from these is great initially, but in the long run,
it is a pain in the butt. You'll have to re-level your bed all the time, way more, in fact,
than with the springs and there's a reason for that.
Unlike these solid silicone bed mounts that once you squish, they eventually just stay
in that position and don't bounce back, these springs do in fact apply force going outward,
which puts pressure on this wheel onto the threads. That holds the wheel in place.
If you don't have that pressure pushing the bed away from the Y-axis gantry here,
what's going to happen is as your print goes on and you move back and forth,
your wheels are going to slowly start to unturn themselves just a little bit.
As you may know, with your first layer, even fractions of a millimeter make a huge difference.
That's why these silicone bed mounts are just not worth it in my opinion. The next thing you might
think is let's try some actual solid bed mounts. These ones are made from solid aluminum and yes,
I've tested them on my digital calipers and every single one of them was within
the correct measurements to a few hundredths of a millimeter, which is perfect, in theory.
In practice, once you put all of these in place what you're going to find
is that even though these are evenly spaced, the gantry itself, your Y-axis gantry here
then moves back and forth. That's not going to be flat. One of the corners, I should say,
it's probably going to be a little lower than the other. It's not really intended to be as flat
as your hot plate. Because of that, you will need shims. I'm talking shims that
are 0.1-millimeter in thickness at the most. You will have to dial it in your level with
those shims. In theory, once you get that taken care of, it will never change again because these
don't have any play. They don't squish, they don't change shape. They don't do any of that.
In theory, that's a good idea but it is a pain in the butt until you get those shims. I've actually
been waiting on some shims for about three months now from AliExpress suffice it to say,
I don't think they're actually going to make it. What I have found is the most reliable and sturdy
connection is still the orange upgraded spring that you find pretty much everywhere. It keeps
things in a pretty solidified manner. It keeps the beds positioning that you level out. Pretty good.
You might have some minor adjustments here and there, but it's relatively consistent and they're
cheap. They're easy to get, they're plentiful. Of all the mounting options that I have tried,
the orange aftermarket upgrade spring that everyone gets anyway still seems to be the
most reliable and easily tuneable option that you can get. There's my two cents. I hope that helps.