Stop losing Qidi ifast 3D prints down the chamber front gap

A simple solution

I love my Qidi ifast but one issue kept cropping up. At the front edge of the chamber there is a gap that seems to be a black hole for small prints. They sometimes ping off the build plate when it is being removed from the chamber and rattle down the slot to be lost underneath the machine. They don’t simple drop out from underneath the machine but instead end up lodged on the cover plate to the power supplies. Lifting the machine to remove this plate is a nightmare job as the machine is so heavy. I usually end up printing a second model. There is a similar gap at the rear of the chamber but this is much less of a problem.

There is a YouTube video showing how to a print protective cover for the front and the back black hole slots. This looked interesting but was a long print run and involved double sided tape.

My solution is to use some aluminium ‘expander mesh’ with some 3D printed fixing clips. The mesh is Gauge 10 and is cut as a 70mm wide trapezium shape with the two sides measuring 500mm and 485mm. I sprayed it black to blend in. Here is a picture before and after fitting.

Here is the Fusion 360 graphic of the clip and the download link for the STL file.

ifast-front-screen-clip Download

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