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February 6, 2026 12:49
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Using steel wires to stiffen cube style printer
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| Requirements: | |
| - 2mm steel wire - depends on the size of the printer, take hypotenuse between corners, | |
| multiply by 4 and then by number of faces typically 4, should be more than enough - | |
| 1mm proooobably would suffice but I opted for stronger one. Don't go beyond 2mm there's little to no point | |
| Everything else is for 2mm wire so if you go with another size, god help you. | |
| - M5 turnbuckle - two per face - roughly matches the working force of 2mm steel wire | |
| - 2mm thimble - one or two per run so two or 4 per face, I went with 1 per run | |
| - mounting - this may wary, but you need some way to attach the steel wire and turnbuckle so don't pick something too wide. | |
| I've went with square corner brackets/blocks whatever it's called. Thimble has to be able to attach to it | |
| as well so keep that in mind, also keep in mind that it cannot be weaker than aluminium to which it attaches, | |
| so no, it can't be 3d printed. | |
| - Crimp tool | |
| - 2mm barrel sleeve - they often come as a kit, crimp tool, barrel sleeve and thimbles, | |
| sometimes 1-4 turnbuckles (we need more) | |
| Theory: | |
| So this is mostly for wireframe cube style printer, where you have aluminium extrusions going on edges of a cube. | |
| That is very weak construction and there's a reason why nobody does it that way. If you push on the top part, | |
| it will bend the vertical columns and top part will move compared to bottom part, aka it will wobble. | |
| That's the reason why your cupboards have board on the back, so that 3 out of 4 vertical faces have solid wall | |
| preventing lateral movement. Now you could do that with printer, add panels on 4 faces, it works and is fine for printer. | |
| But we're going step further. | |
| With panels there's still small amount of wobble left, where when you push on top part, | |
| it can move right up until the forces put the panel in tension, | |
| when the panel will start resisting movement with enough force. We can eliminate that by pre-tensioning the structure. | |
| That way there will be no amount ov movement allowed because it's already at that point where | |
| there's enough tension to prevent movement. That's the goal of tensioning wires. | |
| Now you can either pull corners together or push them apart, both put it in tension, but pulling is easier to do. | |
| How to: | |
| Now I'll assume you have prepared the way to mount the turnbuckle and steel wire, | |
| by either mounting blocks in 4 corners on every face as I did (almost) or manufacturing corner brackets or | |
| whatever your mind will come up with, you do you, there are million ways to solve this and it's so simple | |
| I won't cover it and you have exmaple anyway. | |
| Now with crip tool in one hand and steel wire in another, first we need to cut template amount of steel wire required. | |
| Attach turnbuckle at one corner and extend it to the max. Now roughly cut 1.5x the distance from the turnbuckle | |
| to the other corner, shuold be enough, don't be afraid to mess it up you can always cut more, I messed my first run. | |
| Now that you have this template, cut same distance again (so that you still have template) and then | |
| we shall proceed to making first run. | |
| First put 2 barrel sleeves on the wire, loop it through the corner mounting, then put it into single barrel sleeve | |
| that's already on the wire and closer to the loop. Then make the loop smaller, minimze extra wire and when it looks nice, | |
| proceed to crip it. Now also add the timble and put the loop on the thimble (thimble protects wire against rubbing). | |
| Now loop the wire through closed part of thimble and through the barrel sleeve and make it smaller, | |
| make sure there's no slack (it doesn't have to be ultra tight and tensioned as we'll tension it later | |
| just make sure it's not super loose) and crip it. You can cut the excess off. | |
| Voila! Now repeat that 15 times and have fun. | |
| Now that you're back (well done!) we need to tension it. Beware that using these, | |
| you can make the printer more (or less) square if tension is uneven. It might seem like you made the printer uneven | |
| when you're in the process, don't worry, first finish tensioning everything, after which it should be back to being okay. | |
| Now I've tensioned everything to be figner tight, basically grab the part of turnbuckle that has wire attached to it | |
| and turn the middle part right until you can't anymore (don't force it, if it's difficult to rotate it should be enuogh). | |
| In this way it doesn't put much force but it's nice and in tension. You can tension it more using tools but | |
| you have to keep in mind weakness of aluminium and everything else in the chain so just watch out. | |
| For me just doing it finger tight provided massive results. | |
| Watch out for wires rubbing against the steel wires, they're quite rough and with time could easliy rub through insulation. | |
| Like and subscribe |
Michal-Szczepaniak
commented
Feb 6, 2026
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