Upgrading my old Anet A8 3D printer (for example AM8 aluminium body)

In december 2016 i got the Anet A8 as present which infected me with the 3D printing virus. The Anet A8 is, from my point of view, the perfect printer for the entry in this hobby. But the printer has a few flaws, some of them are very dangerous.

I mainly used the printer to print the parts for my VORON build. The VORON is nearly completed so I have some time to upgrade the A8. The major upgrade will be to replace the acrylic parts with proper aluminium extrusions.

AM8 Anet A8 upgrade

Upgrades

Replacing the acrylic parts with aluminium extrusions

I found on thingiverse a perfect project to do so: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2263216

I will document the progress of the build in these blog posts:

Replacing the dangerous heatbed

The factory default of the heatbed of the A8 is very dangerous and already some of them burnt down.

I bought a silicon heatpad from 230V Keenovo from china.  And installed this, controlled by a 40A Fotek SSR.

Different X gantry

I used a different X gantry with included X belt tensioner:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2023947

Replacing the controller board

Instead of using the default A8 controller board I installed a common RAMPS board with Texas Instruments DRV8825 stepper drivers which i had laying around

Future upgrades

I'am thinking about installing on my primary printer, the VORON, a Duet Ethernet controller board. So my plan is to install the MKS SBase on my A8.