Meade ETX ARCA-Swiss Mounting Plate

The Meade ETX Maksutov-Cassegrain series of optical tube assemblies (OAT) are well respected for their optical performance, but their fork assembly mechanisms are notoriously problematic.  If you have de-forked your ETX, or if you have one of the spotting scope versions of the OAT, you might be looking for a way to mount the tube to a standard photo tripod – the tubes are small and light enough that they make great travel telescopes or useful high-power spotting scopes.

If you have a photo tripod with ¼-20 threaded attachment, you're set – the tubes have two ¼-20 threaded inserts which will allow you to mount it directly.  But what if you have a tripod with an ARCA-Swiss head to let you trade out camera equipment readily?  Well, here you go.  This plate allows you to use two ¼-20 machine screws to attach this printed adapter plate to the bottom of the tube.  You can then slot the assembly into any standard ARCA-Swiss adapter.

The part is fairly filament-agnostic.  I used PETG to good results; I expect PLA+ would work fine, too (assuming you don't encounter temperatures high enough that the PLA+ would warp), as certainly would ASA or ABS.  I recommend using a higher infill percentage – maybe 40-50% – and perhaps four perimeters.   It will print without supports if the (wider) dovetail edge is oriented down.