I need some creative ideas on putting together a new build plate. I rebuilt what was a prusa i3 variant (older type i3 design). The machine is working great, but I'm using the old build plate which is limiting me to 200x200mm. The new rebuild machine can easily do 300x200mm, so I'm putting together the new build plate. I got 2 sheets of aluminum, 12x8 inches which is about 304.8mm x 203.2mm. I bought a silicone heat pad for the bed heater which is 300x200mm.
So normally, would drill M3 holes in the corners and use some rigid silicone heat resistant tubing as my spring type material between the sheets to adjust the bed.
What I want is the lower aluminum sheet will be connected to an OpenBuild gantry plate 200x200 which is attached via V-Wheels to a piece of C-Beam that makes up the bed Y axis. Then a gap between the lower aluminum plate and the upper aluminum plate which has the heater attached to the underside.
My problem is that there's not enough space around the edges of the silicone pad to drill the holes without drilling through the heater pad. I can see the impression of the heating wires in the pad and there does look to be a little extra room on the corners, but I'm not comfortable trying to drill through that area.
Anyone have any thoughts on how to hold the plates with an adjustable gap between them without screws through the plates? Some sort of clamping mechanism that can hold the upper and lower plate by the corners?
