So before I knew about the SuperSerter project, I bought an Amazon press and iron kit similar to this (but not the same, the same one appears to be gone now):
I liked it okay, but the one thing I didn’t like about it was that you just push down on the thing against its return spring, there’s no “drill press” like lever. So I printed a full SuperSerter just to check it out.
For a 3D printed thing, it’s okay, but just okay. While the lever is nice, it’s also just a lot more wobbly and sloppy than the Amazon one. Looking at the Amazon one, though, I decided to see if I could chop up the SuperSerter pieces to add the press part to it. After some interesting Bambu Studio chopping here and there, I cut the pieces out that I needed, added some thickness to some walls to get some meat to accept some heated inserts for assembly, and it worked. Very well, in fact. I now had the best of each press melded together. Sadly, the SuperSerter isn’t licensed in such a way as I’m allowed to share my mods to that work, however.
But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. What bugged me next was someone else mentioning on another forum that they had modded their ACTUAL drill press to be able to stick their iron in it and use THAT as a heated insert tool. And while I’m in no way interested in doing that, the reason why it was so good was compelling…being able to raise and lower the bed. Adjusting the height of the Amazon press is annoying at best.
But staring at it I realized I had plenty of the same 80-20 that it uses for its main structure, so I got a couple much longer pieces and made it taller. Then I found a gantry on Amazon NEARLY the right size. Then did some cobbling and now I have this beast:
I use some thumb screws to tighten and loosen the bed and slide it where I want it then re-tighten. It’s WAY more stable and solid than the SuperSerter still, and now I can adjust the bed height a lot easier than I could adjust all the stuff at the top.
I bring it up here because now I’m thinking about re-creating the Amazon unit completely in 3D printed parts plus two Amazon gantries and some 80-20 and a spring and som other misc hardware. Anyone interested in making one if I did that? The gantries are these at $14 each:
Though I think you can actually find them in pairs on Amazon for even less per unit. I had to modify mine to fit the spacing of these rails, but in the new one I’d just make the rail spacing right to fit the gantries perfectly. Then the bed itself, the holder for the iron, and the press bits would all be 3D printed (I’ll re-design the press bits instead of using the SuperSerter stuff).
Thoughts welcome.