Wet Plate Holder v5

This is the fifth iteration of my 3D printed wet plate holder.  My primary goal for this version was simplicity: it requires no hardware or non-printed parts to assemble.  The only things you'll need to supply are filament, glue, and your choice of darkslide and plate spring (I like to use cut down pieces of sponge, but I've also seen people use sections of plastic bottles and bent pieces of metal to create flat springs).

For complete assembly instructions, see the assembly video.

Printing

You'll need to print one of each of these parts in black in a filament like ABS, ASA, PETG or PLA (but be careful with temperature if you print in PLA).  Choose the files from the folder corresponding to the plate holder size you desire.

• back.step

• front.step

• middle.step

• retaining_tab.step

Print each part without supports in its default orientation, your printer should be able to bridge over any gaps necessary.  I recommend adding a few extra wall loops and top/bottom shell layers to make these parts as light tight as possible, given that they will be the material between your plate and the outside world.

light_trap.step should be printed in a flexible filament, ideally TPU, also black.  This part should be printed standing up as oriented in the STEP file, with a 0.4mm nozzle resulting in a single line of filament on each layer.  You may want to print this part in vase mode.  Because the light trap can be quite tall, you may wish to scale it down in the Z axis and print multiple copies to avoid artifacts from the part starting to wobble as it prints upwards.  For a 4x5 holder, I had good results scaling down to 50% height and printing two copies, but you can print as many as you need for your size.

You may optionally choose to print one copy each of the following parts:

• alignment_plug.step

• rear_cover.step

The use of these parts will be covered in a bit.

Assembly

For full details on assembly, see the linked YouTube video.  The tl;dr version is that you should glue the flat portion of the light trap into the bottom of the cavity in the middle part such that the light trap is attached to the top of the part where the dark slide will enter.  You can then glue the top, middle, and bottom body components together in the alignment that they naturally fit into.  If you printed a copy of alignment_plug.step you can pop it in where the plate would go to help keep the parts aligned while the glue dries.  Finally, glue the retaining tab into the channel in the front of the holder.

Use

Cut dark slides out of your material of choice (I use tintype blank aluminum) for the front and back.  Use the back dark slide to insert and remove plates, and the front darkslide to open the holder for exposure.  If you printed a copy of rear_cover.step you may optionally use it as a temporary cover to allow you to remove the rear darkslide before putting your holder into a darkbox for processing, in case your box doesn't have room to remove the slide.