2025-10-01
Building my personal 3D Printer Rack
The need for a 3D Printer rack attacked me better than what i would like the first layer of a print attach to the bed.
In my current setup everything is on a "table" (more a wooden plank) in my basement, idea that worked well when i had just a single printer, that always worked and it was summer.
Now it's winter, my body freeze down there, i have two printer and one that still doesn't work properly and need my maintenance for hours, with long waiting time i could spend doing else in my home that's two floor above.
So it's finally time that i put once again a 3D Printer in my home (like i did with Ender 3 in my room), but with more safety and care about room noise and temperature.
[ PICTURE OF THE BASEMENT WITH CAPTION "This is the actual setup, little and cold" ]
> My Plan
The idea is to stack the printers one above the other, i decided to remove a library that took a lot of space in my entrance and was too large for the place where it is (in fact is distant 20cm from the wall, but my laziness stopped me from improving this situation)
[ PICTURE OF AN IDEA I HAD IN MIND DRAWN ]
> Taking measures
First of all i took measures of my printers, and i took measures wrong. My printers are:
- Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro
- Bambulab A1
(soon i'll finish the page related to my tools)
I took measures and noted only the one of the largest, because if the largest fit, why the littles shouldn't?
So i took this measures with a meter tape:
| What | Value |
|---|---|
| Printer | Bambulab A1 |
| Width | 59 cm (wrong!) |
| Max depth (so bed full back and full front) | 59cm |
| Max depth (with bed full back | 48 cm |
| Height without Spool holder | i don't remember and lost the note |
I took these wrong measures with me, bought what you will read in the next chapter and then realized the day after i was wrong. The Elegoo was smaller so i didn't care taking notes.
> Looking for the necessary without a plan
So what i had in mind until now were:
- I need to stack the 3D printer one on top of each other
- I must certainly mounted everything without the spool holder
- I needed another library for the one i was replacing
With this in mind, i went to Ikea and after looking for an hour i was thinking to give up. No furniture was able to fit in my needs, but i didn't want to come back home without a solution, i was going to have another work week and the next weekend i wouldn't had time to look for something else.
So, a light at bottom of the tunnel appeared, a furniture in promotion at 29.95€, perfect both for replacing my library and large enough for the printer (60x25x180): The Ikea Bagebo [! ADD LINK]
My idea (and the one that was suggest from the person that was with me!) was simple: buying two furniture to put one in front of the other, leaving the fron without a back. I was so tired that sounded feasible.
So bought 3 of the (one as a library and two as the rack), loaded in my car (i'm not uploading a picture because my mother wouldn't accept the state of my old Yaris, i should put it in order) and went happily home.
> Do not do things while you are tired
Remember when i wrote that i took measurment wrong? Well this bite me because i didn't only took measures wrong of the printer, but also of the library itself. I discovered this while discussing with a colleague, showing him the Bagebo i discovered it was 50x25, not 60x25. It changes a lot if your print is (supposedly 59x48 max).
I KNOW to not do things while tired, but i still do them anyway and.. well everytime i make some mistakes (that's the reason i opened this blog!)
> The "lack" inspiration
So i discovered my mistake not only when i was discussing with a colleague about the Bagebo, but even while looking (after buying of course) some suggestion on how to enclosure the printers to lower fumes and sound.
The community came out with a clever and cheaper solution than mine, using a Ikea Lack table [!link to Ikea Lack] for just 11€, you can print and enclosure to store your printer one of top of each other and close it with plexiglass. Woah so i not only took measurment wrong, i also spent a lot more i could have done.
BTW these are a lot of examples for a lot of 3D Printers online regarding this solution, you should check them out even if you have only one printer [!A lINK TO AN EXAMPLE, maybe Reddit, of the entire sentence]
[ IMMAGINE DI LACK PROJECTS COOL ]
> The new plan
First of all, new measures. Online the one i found weren't matching the one i took, so i let someone else take the measures of my printer for me, the Bambulab were still the bigger of the two but the new measures were:
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Width | 47 cm |
| Height (without spool holder) | ADD |
| Depth (full back and forward) | 53 cm verify! |
| Internal Space of the library | 47 cm (gulp) |
So i had to decide if to return the Bagebo still packaged to Ikea and buy a Lack like the community does, or still full throttle of my idea.
Well... after thinging for a while i decide that i want "full throttle" on my idea. Went to Leroy Merlin and bought:
- 6x Angular Plate
- 12x matching plate to sustain everything
- 30x M4 Screws of 30mm length
- 30x M4 Nuts
- 60x M4 washers
- A drill
- A 4mm wood tip for the drill
Without the drill and the wood tip the cost has been around 25/30€.
[ IMMAGINE PEZZI SUL TAVOLO ]
> Building everything
Building the furniture itself has been pretty easy, the variations from the original instructions has been the following:
- Mounted only 3 scaffholder instead of full 5 for both Bagebo
- The front Bagebo has been mounted without the back wall (to create continuity with the back one)
- The front Bagebo has been reinforced using the 6x Angular plate, making holes from one side to the other
- The back Bagebo has been incised in the back wall to create space for the power cable of 3D Printer
And voilà, the Rack reached is first stadium of assembly! I have to say, it went smoother than i tought initially, even the Bambulab fit inside smootly.
[ Immagine RACK ]
For the electrical power i simply brought a standard extension cord to the back of my new furniture, punched a hole for each level and used two power strips to connect everything (my two printers and the Raspberry, leaving free 5 outlet on the top of the Bagebo).
> Spool positioning
For the spool the plan is simple, feed the two spool (one for printer) from top of the furniture, by passing the filament inside air tubes, sliding the air tubes in two holes i drilled on each layer.
In this way i'm getting ready for printing TPU mantaining the filament dry, as I plan in the future to update my food dehidrator with some bearing to print TPU in real time.
[ PICTURE OF THE TUBES with captions "the tubes go from top to bottom"]
For spool holder i printend a couple of this model by XXXX to fix on the shelf via some M4x40mm screws.
[ LINK TO THE MODEL + A PICTURE OR EMBED ]
Finally i needed to print the filament detector for the Elegoo, and printed just a part of this model
[ LINK TO THE MODEL + PICTURE OR EMBED https://www.printables.com/model/750980-neptune-3-or-4-filament-guide-sensor-and-blink-hol ]
> Noise tests and suppresion
As excepted this build is loud. Not as much as i thougth, but enough to not make me sleep well at night probably. So i ran some test simulating "worsts cases" and i figured out the two bigger problems:
- Bambulab A1 is so fast it creats a LOT of vibrations, i need to suppress them (looking on Internet i read is called "Decoupling")
- Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro mainboard fan, is noisy as a lawn mower during midnight
So i made some upgrades.
[ PICTURE OF THE TESTS ]
> Suppressing Bambulab A1 vibration noise
My first idea has been to add some mass with a concrete block for each printer, plus adding a soft foam on the bottom of the concrete to do something called "Decoupling", the idea has been given to me by a CNC Kitchen video. VIDEO LINK https://youtu.be/y08v6PY_7ak
So i went buying all the stuff needed and.. nope is not possible. The concrete is too heavy (i would have added 30kg on the furniture itself) + the cost of antivibrations wuold have been of 32€!!
My solution has been to simply dial down the speed of the printer, and for now seems to work great as solution.
> Suppressing Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro fan noise
The fan that produce noise are two, one is from the PSU and for now i'm not touching it, the other is from the mainboard (is the loudest of the two).
The fan inside works at 24v and is 60mm Elegoo standard fan, i'm going to upgrade it to a Noctua 12v 92mm Silent Fan.
For doing so i added a step down DC to DC converter 24v to 12v, four bridge connectors, and the Noctua NF-A9 FLX using the included "silencer" connector.
[ PICTURE OF MAINBOARD ]
Oh boy what a mess is Elegoo, every cable is connected to the mainboard with hot glue. Is not the first cheap solution i see in this printer, i should write a post about.
To fit everything in i printed a new mainboard cover from Yukosteel (link https://www.printables.com/model/851462-modular-mainboard-cover-for-60mm-80mm-92mm-quiet-f ), the results are incredible, the files i actually ended up using are "EN3P_MB_cover_modular_fans_V1C_vent.stl" and "EN3P_MB_cover_modular_fans_V1C_fan_mount_92mm_cut.stl", using the stock screws of the printer plus a piece of filament for the hinge.
Plus i needed to print and add some feet riser still from Yukosteel (link https://www.printables.com/model/942777-elegoo-neptune-3-pro-4-pro-feet-riser-plus-30mm-40 ) i choose EN3P_feet_riser_V1_56mm.stl.
[ FINAL PICTURE ]
The results so good i cant' even trust they are real, the printer is so quiet now that i can hear just the stock PSU fan.
It's finally done!
Yay, i can't believe i was able to finish this project in just a week! I needed external help for completing some tasks, but now i finally have my 3D Printer rack! You can emulate the same project as well, send me your results or your ideas!
> WAIT, a final touch !
I did this after completing the article and the furniture, but it deserves to be written anyway. I added a touch display for Klipper, i used a Waveshare 7 inch QLED display i had as a spare from a old project, put on top of two legs from the following model [LINK TO THE MODEL] and fixed with 4 M3x?? screws.
[ PICTURE ]
Isn't that cool?
> Do you have a thought you wanna share?
Humamns always have thoughts, silly me.
you can share it by writing me on Fediverse at @synthbirba@misskey.social
or write me an email on inbox@synthbirba.space
I'll wait your message!