DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING. DON'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING YET. IT WON'T MAKE SENSE AND IS ENTIRELY USELESS ON ITS OWN.

this will be a collection of parts i designed and tested that are required to build an XY-plane for 3D printing. here is the basic concept:

4 steppers, one in each corner of a stiff MDF/fiberboard (NOT PARTICLEBOARD OR MELAMINE) at least 15mm thick. there are 2 steppers driving each axis--one running forward and the other in the opposite direction (each axial pair is countersynchronized).

i've considered just about every possible configuration and will post the ones that i think work best and are most versatile.

here's how they vary: -vertically or horizontally mounted steppers -above plane or below plane -right-side up or upside down -inside rails or outside rails -aluminum tubing rails + PLA bearings or standard 8mm smooth rod + LM8LUU -single spanners or dual spanning rods/rails for the "crosshair" -moving bed or moving hot end (requires optional cut out in plane) -V-mounted idler pins (M5 screws) can only go in from the bottom but i can offset the hole to allow it to be screwed in from the top

i even thought of using 2 planes to sandwich the steppers between but that didn't make much sense in terms of accessibility.

since my Z-axis and extruder are completely independent of the XY-plane, they will be ignored for now. my Z-axis converts between raising a stationary hot end or lowering a stationary bed with each successive printed layer. if you don't have an independent Z-axis, the XY-plane alone is useless. just a heads up.

so the main parts of the XY-plane will be: -4 stepper mounts -8 rail mounts -4 linear bearings -8 belt clips for the linear bearings -upper and lower "crosshair" that will hold either a moving bed or moving hot end -span mounts which connect the spanning rails/rods to the X and Y bearings

i'll post 28BYJ-48 V-mounts, L-bracker H-mounts and more pictures to clarify things.... as well as everything else you will need to build an XY-plane.

the main photo shows V-mounts and the assembly on the right is what i'm about to mount onto the 28BYJ-48 XY-plane.

UPDATE JUNE 22, 2018: included vertical-8m-nu-idler-1j.stl which requires 4 x 50mm M3 screws to mount into a 3/4" platform. this has a self-contained idler which makes a lot more sense than drilling an idler whole through the platform. idler pin is actually a 25mm M5, you'll need a tap for that, but i'm sure this is the best way to go. i also included a very convoluted BLEND file you can edit for different heights. the object you want to modify and export to STL is called 'Final Mount'. compatible w/ 6mm 2GT belts and 20T pulleys/idlers.

also added a bearing sleave for LML8UU bearings in case you want to use standard 8mm smooth rod instead of aluminum tubes. that STL is called nu-LM8LUU-vertical-1p-temp.stl.