Due to real-world inconveniences like gravity and manufacturing tolerance, the monitor sags relative to the aluminum extrusion frame of Luggable PC Mark II Revision B. We’ll have to compensate for this by adding something to help hold the monitor in the frame.

This Lenovo L24q-20 has barely any bezel around the screen, which was a tremendous plus when I was shopping around monitors. The tiny bezel makes for compact dimensions which makes it easy to package, and the lack of excess material contributes to weight. But now the lack of bezel means I need to be careful with the bracket that we’ll need.

When there’s physical stress on a LCD screen, it distorts the layers inside and show up as visible color distortions on-screen. It isn’t good for the screen and doesn’t look good, either. We want something that can spread this stress evenly over a large area. Ideally something flexible so high-stress areas can give way to balance the load.

 

I started designing rigid 3D printed brackets with stick-on foam strips for flexibility, but then remembered “vase mode”. This is an option in 3D printing where, instead of printing a solid object, the plastic is only extruded on the perimeter. This results in a thin shell of the shape, the thickness of the wall is the 3D printer extruder nozzle diameter, and the center is empty.

Thingiverse had a few objects to be printed in “vase mode”. It was good for showing off something 3D printers can do easily that is difficult for other manufacturing methods. But while it was good for these Thingiverse trinkets, I didn’t see a functional use for this technique… until today!

I designed the shape I wanted in Fusion 360 (as a solid) and printed a short segment using vase mode to prove the idea is sound.

Once the short test piece proved successful, I proceeded to print enough segments to cover all available space on the extrusion bar. (Everything not taken up by the handle or the corner pieces.) They hold the monitor in place while distributing that pressure across almost the full width of the monitor.