3D Printing Robot Accessories

In 2024 I bought a Bambu Lab A1 mini for €200. It comes fully assembled and I have found it to be an amazing tool to have around, far better than the 3D printers that were available when I was at university in 2016.

The printer was bought for other purposes, but it has been useful for printing accessories and mounts for the Create 3 robot. There is a library of mounts in the Create 3 Docs, but not for the devices I am using.

The faceplate and internal cargo bay of the Create 3 robot feature a 12mm grid of “3mm diameter” mounting holes, though I believe they are more like 3.2mm.

LiDAR holder

The first part to print for the robot was a mount for an RPLidar C1. This was just a holder with a wall missing on one side for cables.

Reolink camera holder

The Reolink E1 zoom has a mounting plate included in the packaging which screws onto the bottom. The mounting plate has 2 x 4mm holes 18mm apart, which are in the centre of the holder in a 0.5mm recess. To add space underneath the Reolink mount, I printed some plastic shims also, around 15mm. This allows the cable for the RPLidar to run underneath them.

Assembled Robot

With the antenna attached to the top of the robot and some flexible Ethernet cables for wiring, the robot assembly is for now complete 🦾. After months with a webcam on a stand and cables filling the cargo bay, the robot is now looking clean and I can go back to working on software. Next up, Reolink camera controls in the UI.

P.S The camera is blocking around 20% of the LiDAR’s field of view, will find a solution for this later.