Building a 3D Printer

I purchased a Prusa 8" i3 printer kit. It's a kit so you have to assemble it. I'll post photo's of each completed step. I'm going to reserve a few posts so i can get all the photo's in at the beginning of the thread. Here are the first few photo's of all the parts and assembling the X-axis.

 

y axis stuff, the overall frame, and the lcd controller mount and y axis assembly attached to the frame.

 

final assembly and one shot of it actually working.

 

Oh, man... why did you have to show me this!!! All my money is going to Brewing Beer, Firearms, & Star Citizen. Now I have a new item on my wishlist!!!

Thank you for sharing though! I am definitely interested to see it completed and working!

 

Just think grim! You could print a firearm, print a custom beer stein, and print models of the SC ships in your hanger! It goes perfectly with your other money pits! Do it! You know you want to... :rolleyes:

 

Cripes Mellow, didn't realize you were getting a printer in a box. Congrats! I'm not nearly that brave. If I ever get me a 3d printer it is absolutely going to be pre-assembled. I'm all lazy like that. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

it took me 2.5 days to assemble and get working. my brain is completely fried, but it is working. printing the test cube right now. might be some more work on the software side to get the slices calibrated for flow and such but at least it is printing.

 

Does that model have an option for an sd card to load the gcode files?

Best thing about softward at the moment are all the options to choose from.Congrats on getting it all together!

 

On an unrealted note I"ve been wondering why these machines don't use a thraded rod for all the axis as apposed to just the up and down. Any idea?

 

This could be for a couple of reasons; availability, cost, and reliability of parts (namely servos) likely a significant factor for this product in particular, though here I'm guessing its primarily a design issue.

First, consider why a threaded rod drive system would be used for vertical movement. Majority of the printer carriage and table movement will be along the x and z axis, building layer by layer, while very little movement occurs along the vertical y axis and generally only in one direction incrementally while printing. Given that individual layers are very thin, a threaded rod with a high number of threads per inch/mm would allow for very small, precise adjustments. In addition, the weight of the carriage assembly needs to be supported, something a threaded rod can do passively.

The toothed belt drive system used for x and z axis movement has its own advantages. If the idea is to put down a full layer as quickly as possible so that the layer solidifies as uniformly as possible, you need a servo and drive system that can move the carriage or table quickly and fairly precisely. While a threaded rod drive could do the same, think of how and where those servos would have to be mounted to enable movement in the respective axis, and what forces would be exerted upon the supporting frame in effect. Note that with the exception of the carriage x-axis movement servo, all others are stationary and mounted as low as possible on the frame to help provide a stable weighted base. Minimizing carriage and table weight to reduce its momentum and so smaller, cheaper servos could be used were likely important design considerations.

With the weight of the carriage assembly in mind, there is also the matter of effective servo torque. By having the belt drive servos' shaft connected to a larger gear, its effective torque is increased; something that would be more difficult to accomplish compactly with a rod drive. I imagine that gear and belt could also be easily replaced, providing a way to directly adjust carriage movement range or speed.

 

almost all of them have an sd slot. mine is part of the lcd assembly. as for the drive axis stuff, catch pretty well nailed it. this type of printing is SLOW even at the best of times with the screw being used for x and y it would be very slow, and also i think you would end up with a lot of extra drip from the nozzle because of it.

 

final thoughts a week or so in:
i don't like the assembly tray moving in Y axis. my next one it will move in the z axis and the print head will do both the x and y.

as for this kit specifically i felt the instructions where pretty bad. he would show all the parts that needed for each step and then he either wouldn't use all of them or he would use slightly different stuff (locking nuts vs normal ones and stuff like this) during the video. In addition, he has done some upgrades but hasn't included them in the instructions. For example, there where some special bolts with springs that are used for the tray assembly so you can level it. they were not mentioned at all in the instruction video so i didn't use them initially and ended up short the number of bolts needed to finish assembly. then i figured out what was going on and had to take apart part of the tray and reassemble it with the new bolts and springs so i could recover the original bolts for use further along.

the kit is laser cut and yet i still had to do a lot of sanding for the assebly tray clearance on the y axis. the under side of the tray hung down about 1 1/2 mm to far to clear the front of the frame assembly. it seems to me that this stuff should have been figured out on his first attempt and notched to provide the correct clearance.

I went with a .4 mm magma head because it would do ABS and the .35 mm j head that was listed as the other option would only do PLA. 10 days after i have ordered i have discovered that the j-head works just fine for ABS as well. the magma head will not do PLA (although will do a number of other more advanced high-heat stuff). I would have probably gone with the j-head initially if i had know this as PLA and ABS are the two beginner type materials to work with.

For the most part this kit has done what i needed it too. It has introduced me to 3D printing and familiarized me with how the printers work and what types of things i need to look for to do this on a larger commercial scale. I am becoming proficient with the sliceing software and already knew that i would need a fair amount of training with CAD. The basic programs are fine and easy to use (tinkerCAD.com) but they are very limited in what you can accomplish easily. So all in all i'm pretty happy with the experience although it was a bit frustrating as the learning curve (especially with the bad instructions) is steep.

 

Congrats! I know these things are big projects and require a lot fo attention and tweeking to get just right. Hope you get the kind of prints out of it you were hoping for.

This thread got me looking at the machines again. Prices keep coming down but are still a bit steep for me. The Printrbot simple is within shooting distance but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to dive in. It would be nice to have a new project though.

The Delta style printers are new-ish on the scene and are an interesting design. I haven't heard a whole lot about them and there aren't any 'afordable for me' kits or machines on the market yet.

 

I'm told a bunch of copyright/patent stuff is expiring this year so there will be a number of things that will hit the market next year and costs should come down some more. I would suggest waiting a couple more months to see what happens. I wanted to start figuring stuff out now so I will be ready next year to take advantage of this stuff from a more knowledgeable position as I am considering doing this as a business.

 

the delta stuff looks very cool. i might try making one next.

 

On the business side have you looked at any of the more 'industrial' machines? I'm currently fascinated by the MCOR printers. They use lamianted sheets of paper as the build and support material makeing the print cost very low. The new IRIS model adds a step so you print in full color. I't spretty cool but, if I can't afford a 2k printer the 50k Iris is on the Lotto list

I've heard a few people talk about using the ones like you made for a more mass-production project but they just aren't quite up to the task. You need quite a few of them running constantly and being checked on.

What ever the next steps I hope things fall in to place for you. Sounds exciteing.

P.S. I've seen a few items pop up from time to time on making your filament from recycle or bulk pellets on kickstarter. If these catch on and/or get a bit less spendy they should let you cut print cost at the expense of a bit more time and let you recycle bad prints and scrap filament.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...iny-fast-precise-low-cost-filament-e?ref=live

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic-filament-maker?ref=live

 

pro tip: if you build one of these, use some locktite on the bolts.

i started having problems with jagged curves when transitioning from x-axis movement to y-axis. the curve was still good when going from y to x though. turns out most of the nuts holding the undercarriage of the print tray (which moves in the y-axis) had come loose or fallen off. the undercarriage is where the belt attaches and so i wasn't getting smooth movement when it started to pull.

 

Locktite, check!

 

The MCOR is what Staples is using in Europe for the 3D printing service they have started there. It is supposed to make it over to the states at some point. And yes, I am planning on going for the more industrial ones at some point. I am using the hobby level ones to learn how they work without having to drop the big money. a number of patents/copyrights are expiring this year so prices should drop on a number of them next year as well. I am wait and see for them for a few more months.

 

Ran across a nice torture test of slicers today and thought you may be interested. The gentleman that did them also has notes on possible fixes for some of the issues but did everything for the test with the same settings. It is surprising how much a difference software makes to me but I suppose it is the vast majority of the process when you get down to it.

http://solidoodletips.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/slicer-torture-test/