Computer Monitors are great for productivity giving you a great deal of space to work with when you are using a PC or when you plug in a laptop. They also are the main way to use a PC tower making them extremely useful, if not essential. I personally use a PC with my monitor but have always noticed that the monitor was a little low for comfortable work. With this instructable, I plan to show you everything you need to know to set up your own 3d printable monitor stand to raise your screen up to the comfortable height. My monitor had many abnormal qualities including its weight and its large base. Seeing that I had so many obscure problems to compensate for, this stand should be applicable to most other monitors with few adjustments. Nonetheless, I intend on giving you all the information and design files you need to tweak my design to your liking.

Supplies

Fusion 360
Paper for notes
Tape Measure for measuring
4 1.25 inch screws
4 1.5 inch screws
Screw Driver
Hot glue gun
Erasable marker
3d Printer
Wood putty - (optional)
Sandpaper - (optional)
Spray Paint - (optional)

Step 1: My Design Constraints:

It has to carry my 14.3 lbs monitor.
The monitor base is an ellipse with master measurements of 16.5 in * 7 in
It has to be able to have room to slide my keyboard away underneath the base.
My Keyboard is 16 in * 4.5 in * .6 in
Each piece could not be any larger than 8.5” x 6.5” inches due to the size of the 3d printer available

Step 2: Design of Parts:

First I needed to make my base for the monitor to stand on. In order to fit the monitor on the stand lengthwise and also fit the keyboard underneath, I would have to make the overall build quite big. Knowing my maximum length was 8.5” x 6.5” due to the 3d printer constraint, I made my flat top out of two side by side rectangular prisms measuringing 8.2” x 6.2”. Although that makes my flat top less deep than my actual base being 7” at its maximum, I realised that it would be good if not better to have my stand stick out slightly on the back for reasons I will explain later.

In order to make those two top face pieces stay together, I designed a very simple underside support piece designed to be big enough to screw several screws into for a solid connection.

Lastly, the most important part was the vertical walls that go around the stand in order to lift the monitor up it’s full height. My stand lifts the screen up by 2.5 inches. A key component to my wall design is the fact that it has angled supports to help give the top face more strength by pushing the force to the sides. This is done on the left and the right walls but most extremely on the back wall.

The back wall of this stand has 2.5 inches of solid plastic for 2 main reasons. The first reason is that it makes it so that the keyboard can not be pushed back too deep so that you can’t get it back and the 2nd reason is that it helps the overall strength of the stand. The back will be bearing a lot of the weight so it must have a seriously sturdy base.

Now that you understand my mindset behind the designing of the parts of this build, we must start to put the pieces together to make the entire monitor stand.

Step 3: Stl Files and Settings to Print Them

In order to 3d print the stl files I have provided, you will need the following settings for each file:

Left_Face.Stl

No support 12% infill

Right_Face.stl

No support 12% infill

Left_Wall.stl

No support 20% infill ( if this is too high you can lower it but it does need to be very secure)

Right_Wall.stl

No support 20% infill ( if this is too high you can lower it but it does need to be very secure)

Suport_Part.stl

No support 10% infill

These infill percentages are quite generous but I was very pleased with the strength of my build so I recommend these values as the values I used.

Step 4: Assembling - Top Face

First notice that there are 2 side walls, one underside support piece, and 2 top face pieces. The underside support piece will connect the two top faces together and the 2 support side walls will lift the entire thing to its desired height.

To get started, we must center the underside support piece under the 2 top faces. Flip both top faces so that their top face is resting on the table. Line them up next to each other so that the fillets that are now facing upwards are next to each other. That will make the right angle spaces on the opposite sides of the part which perfectly line up with where the side wall pieces will lock in. Understand that your stand will be locked together in this position when you attach the support piece in the middle. Since my support piece is 8 inches long, measure 4 inches from the inside of two top faces so that there are two lines that the support piece should be between in order to be perfectly centered.

Next, apply a heavy amount of hot glue on one of the sides of the top face that will be facing each other when the two top faces come together. Before the hot glue starts to harden, push the two faces together and make sure your two top faces are perfectly next to each other making sure to check that they are flush to each other in all ways. Since you drew the vertical lines beforehand, they will be exactly 8 inches away from each other and ready to accept the underside support piece. At this point, your top face feels like one piece and starts to resemble the top of the computer stand even though it does not have the desired strength to carry all of the weight of the computer.

Step 5: Attaching Underside Support Peice

Now, apply a good amount of hot glue to the flat face of the support piece and quickly squeeze it right between the two guide lines made previously. This bond will be quite strong and should be done correctly as quickly as possible. You do not need an excessive amount of hot glue to connect these faces, just one continuous loop about a half an inch from the perimeter of the face. Once the 3 parts are all locked together, they will completely make up your top face. If you were to flip the top face over, you would see a completely flat surface that your computer will rest on.

This next step involving screws is possibly optional seeing that the hot glue is very strong. I will now use some screws to ensure a perfect strength between the bonds between the pieces. First I measure on the support piece to notice that if you go inward about an inch, you meet the flat part of the piece and if you were to screw at that point, your screw would avoid the filet that goes around the part.

Now make two lines wrapping around the front of the stand that are both about 2.5 inches from the middle of the stand. These lines will start on the support piece and wrap around the fileted front until it reaches the flat face on top and extends a few inches inward. These two arbitrary lines are simply there to guide where we will be putting our screws through the part. These lines are not very important, don’t have to be perfectly straight, and don't have to be exactly 2.5 inches from the center. They simply have to be relatively centered a bit of a distance from the center.

Now using the front of the stand as a reference and looking down at the top face, measure two little markings on each of the longer lines each at 1 inch from the front and 1.9 inches from the front. The markings on the longer line represent where screws will go. Do this on both lines to have markings for the position of 4 screws. Then continue to screw four 1.5 inch screws into those spots. This will take a bit of pressure and strength to break through the top layer of the plastic and the layer of the support piece. Once you make it through the top, be careful to bust through the support piece and continue screwing in it to ensure a good bond. This did not happen to me but be careful that you do not accidentally start to push the support piece away from the other pieces when your screw is having a hard time breaking through the top layer of plastic.

Step 6: Attaching the Side Walls Walls - Part 1

Now that these three pieces have been successfully and fully joined together, you are ready to attach the side walls to make sure that your entire build stands up straight.

I would like to show you now that the 1.25 inch screws that you should use to screw the side walls to the top face are 1.25 inch for a reason. As shown in the following picture, if they were much longer or placed in a spot too far away from either side of the top face, their length would protrude out of the diagonal supports. Before I show you exactly where to put the screws, we should hot glue them together so that it is easier to work with.

Apply hot glue to one of the sidewalls on all of the sections that will be touching the top face. To understand which faces those are, line it up to how it should connect to the top face and notice that there is one face that is the same shape as the side of the top face that face should be glued. Also notice that the top face rests on a diagonal support and that diagonal support should have glue on it’s flat section to ensure an optimal strength.

After you apply hot glue to those faces on both of the side walls and squeeze them into place, your entire build will appear to be finished. It is also very possible that it is finished due to the strength that the hot glue ensures. Nonetheless, I decided to add 4 final screws to lock everything together for good.

Step 7: Attaching the Side Walls - Part 2

First you should measure 2 horizontal lines from the front of your stand being 1 inch from the front and 3 inches from the front and draw those lines on the top face. On each of those horizontal lines, draw a small mark about ¼ inch from the connection between the sidewall and top face. The marked points on the horizontal lines are again denoting where the 1.25 inch screws should be.

When you have all 4 of your marks on the horizontal lines, screw in the next 4 screws by applying a bit of pressure and strength to break through the top layer of the plastic and the layer of the side walls. Once you make it through the top, be careful to bust through the diagonal piece and continue screwing in it to ensure a good bond. Be just as careful and strong on these screws as you were on the other 4 screws.

At this point, your entire build is complete and can be used without any fear. Because I used blue filament, I decided to spray paint it to black in order to make it match everything else in my room. From this point on, everything I will describe to you is optional.

Step 8: Finishing Touches

Next, what I recommend is that you get some wood filler to smooth out the sections where the screws left an indent in the flat surface of the stand. This will involve getting a little cup of water and dipping your finger to get it wet. Then take a bit of wood filler and generously apply it to every indent. You should definitely be generous because if you put more than you need, you can always sand it down later. After you apply wood filler to every applicable place, let it sit to dry for about 15 minutes or until you can tell that it is dry and then check if you should apply more. Keep layering more on until you think your part has enough wood filler or even too much that you can later remove.

Lastly before you paint, take a sand paper and make everything smooth and clean over the screws. Your build will ultimately only be as perfectly smooth as your original 3d printed part. As you can see from the images throughout this instructable, my 3d printed parts had a bit of a grain so the goal of the sand paper was not to remove the grain but only to remove any major disruptions in the face of the part.

Lastly, you should spray paint the build. First, find an open area where you can lay out an old cardboard box or tarp that you aren’t afraid to get painted. Then make sure to make long even sprays over your entire build making sure to not miss any part of the top of the stand. After that has dried, flip it over and repeat that process to make your whole build the same color. You may or may not want to cover it in multiple layers.

Step 9: Closing Words

This project was fun to work on and very rewarding. I did learn many things including the fact that 3d printer filament is much stronger than I thought and that spray paint dries much faster when there is airflow. This project not only looks nice in my opinion, but is also very practical and useful for me. I can not wait to have the satisfaction of knowing that I made this very useful stand that fits my needs perfectly.

I used Fusion 360 to desing all of my parts and my desing file is linked below.