Complete newbie step by step, 3D printer with all parts lists Intro, prelude, or just: who is this meant for? I wanted the title to include cheap, but lets face it: it is not cheap to build a 3D printer unless you have some/most of the components on hand or if you find just shy of £100 as cheap to make a tiny, not very good quality printer. This tutorial is all about starting from zero, figuring out and understanding all parts of a 3D printer and keeping costs down for this our very first build. The upside is that all the items can be reused for a larger better printer at a later stage. I have not kept strict tabs on costs, but the final printer, which is awesome, amounted to a total of just over £200 or so. In short, I'm going to build a 3D printer made from parts from old CD/DVD drives and some aluminium pieces. This project is about learning how the individual parts of a 3D printer fits together, to learn the basics here and move to larger projects later where we can reuse all the parts worth more than £10. Does the above lists describe you?
Reprap development and further adventures in DIY 3D printing: MENDELMAX - Quick-fit X and Quick-fit Extruder/s Back in October I started on a number of MendelMax builds. Time passes I got distracted by Christmas (and the excellent Slic3r) New Slic3r 0.7.1 out NOW! It has been a really amazing period from October-Feb with so many new machines being released into the community, my own needs and desires for the 'perfect' machine are now starting to materialise. MendelMax isn't 100% perfect, but it's the best machine I have built to date - and I really like it. MendelMax. I have now been using a 'finished' MAX for the last 6 weeks, It's really great, and easy to hack with, I have already upgraded quite a few parts and built a whole new X Carriage concept based on using the MAX for a while.MendelMax Created by kludgineer - the files and many derivatives can be found on Thingiveres Here - I have added links to my changes below - I built up a frame concept back in 2010 out of 20mm Extrusions, but it never got past this picture - It would have been an interesting machine. Big Max and Mini Max Extruder - Rich.
» 2008 » September Linear motion – DIY ideas Make Your Own 3D Printer Filament with the ExtrusionBot There have been several attempts at developing a practical filament-making machine. Is ExtrusionBot the one that succeeds? We’ve looked at a few similar devices and found most of them to be impractical for various reasons, not the least being quality of output. In today’s personal 3D printers (at least the plastic filament-based ones) the quality of input filament is critical. Let’s take a look at the ExtrusionBot, said to be “The world’s fastest filament extruder”. The ExtrusionBot has a unique design: it’s upright, whereas most of the other filament makers we’ve seen are horizontal and take up much more space. Also unlike many other filament makers, the ExtrusionBot includes an “automatic spooling mechanism so filament does not end up as a tangled mess on the floor”. The ExtrusionBot includes several other interesting features: Swappable nozzles to enable extrusion of different filament diameters. Of course, the major benefit of making your own filament is low cost materials.
Italian 3D-Printing Company Creates Unique Furniture Combining Traditional Craftsmanship & 3D Technology Italy is quickly emerging as a competitor in the global 3D printing market in no small measure thanks to one company, 3DiTALY. One of the company’s founders, Antonio Alliva, and his design team showcased 3DiTALY’s latest project in late April at Milan Design Week, truly an important world stage for all things furniture. One of the primary goals of 3DiTALY is to explore the potential for combining 3D scanning and printing technology with traditional furniture design techniques, and the project, titled “Eggform,” did just that. 3DiTALY, which began a decade ago as a kind of experimental laboratory, offers a wide range of services, including workshops, labs, a retail and exhibition space in Rome that invites visitors to explore 3D printing. The Eggform project’s primary goal was to produce Design Week-quality furniture with the use of 3D technology. The design team began by using high resolution 3D scanners to scan organic textured surfaces like leaves, feathers, and wood grain.
BoXZY Rapid-Change FabLab: Mill, Laser Engraver, 3D Printer by Justin and Joel Johnson BoXZY mills complex shapes in brass, aluminum, plastics, and hardwoods. You can shape almost any material you can source when you couple BoXZY with its quick change mill. BoXZY cuts rapidly through soft metals and hard woods, and BoXZY comes with a solid aluminum jig plate. Simply, pull off the magnetically coupled 3D print platform to expose the pre-drilled fixture plate and attach your spoil board, fixture plate, clamps, or ours! The 2000mW laser engraver slices through balsa and other thin woods eagerly, and will engrave photos on hardwood, leather, and plastic with incredible accuracy. For precision nothing compares: there are few methods precise enough to render text, images, and complex design files with such fidelity as a laser engraver. BoXZY is top-tier as 3D printer, and it’s a great compliment to the mill and laser. Quick-change attachments. Interchangeable Manufacturing Method You can CNC mill, laser engrave, and 3D print without ever leaving the control software.
3D printer improvements: Rollerstruder: a filament feeder / driver / extruder Almost one year ago I got rid of the plywood Ultimaker filament drive mechanism. It is an extremely important part of the FDM process as it pushes the (cold) filament towards the (hot) end. Any malfunction at this stage systematically leads to a bad print. So when not reliable, you have to stay close and react quickly to fix troubles, for example by feeding the filament further manually (btw check this if you are still doing it on an Ultimaker). As for me, most of the trouble came from the old bolt that was shipped with my printer: it was grinding my filaments a lot, sometimes to the point it would stop moving completely and ruin the hour-long printable kalashnikov. In fact I just don't know about the new official drive mechanism (which seems way more reliable given the forum feedback), because I designed my own feeder that has to match my more efficient but unsual hobbed bolt. So: filament feeder, filament extruder, drive mechanism? Expected features A timelapse of the print.
Control your printer's ATX PSU through a RAMPS board using OctoPrint · foosel/OctoPrint Wiki Introduction Step by step instructions References and notes Introduction The idea Basically, if you are using the ubiquitous Arduino Mega 2560 + RAMPS 1.4 combo to interface with your printer hardware, and powering your setup with an ATX power supply, there is a simple way to switch on/off your printer with OctoPrint, without the need for any extra relays or electronic circuits. The theory One of the motherboard connector pins of the ATX power supply is a power-on input (PS_ON#, green wire) which must be driven low to switch on (soft-start) the power supply. The RAMPS 1.4 board provides a PS-ON pin which is controlled by one of the Arduino Mega 2560 pins. In this HOWTO, I'll provide the instructions to properly connect the ATX power supply to the RAMPS 1.4 board and configure the Arduino firmware and OctoPrint so that it's easy (and safe) to switch on/off your printer with OctoPrint. Step by step instructions Before you start What you want to check here: ATX PSU to RAMPS 1.4 wiring
Driving 28BYJ-48 step motor with Pololu A4988 drivers | ElectronicsMayhem I have always liked the 28BYJ-48 motor because of its power and price, it also supposed to very reliable since it is used in different types of air conditioners. Some information about the motor: This motor is very small but has enough power for most of the projects because it has a built-in 1/64 reduction gear. The result is a very small step of the motor which is 0,087890625 degrees per step. but for the price of under 2$ it still is a very good motor. The main issue about driving this motor with a pololu a4988 driver is that this is an unipolar motor and the pololu driver is designed to work with bipolar motors. Ok, so straight to the point. This is however not that simple. After you remove the blue plastic you will have access to the path we need to remove. Congratulations! Last but not least the two pair of wires are orange/pink and blue/yellow. At this point you can connect the motor to the a4988 driver. Don’t forget to adjust your A4988 driver current to the minimum!