Custom Low Budget 3D Printer
Introduction: Custom Low Budget 3D Printer
Hello all! So this time we are making a printer!
It is all about an FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) , CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) , cartesian, cantilever 3D printer. So basically when it is done, you just provide a plastic string to it, which it uses in different ways to produce all sorts of different plastic 3D objects! Which is kinda cool...
So let's get into it!
This whole make is also covered in video on my yt channel, so that you can have a better look if you decide you also want one of those for yourself. It is spread over 5 different videos, each one serving its own purpose, and covering pretty much everything you are gonna need, but I will embed the last one of them here so that you can have a look and see what we are talking about before even proceeding into reading this whole text that I will be writing underneath!
Step 1: The Selection of It.
Ok, you busted me! 3D printers are nothing new, they have been around for quite a lot of time now, they are widely spread, vastly developed over time, and very very well documented amongst open-source communities around the globe..
But making one yourself must be quite innovative, right??!
Again, not really! Well, while in my circle I don't have any fellas who made their own printer (or any CNC machine for that matter!), this is not a very rare phenomenon. There is a huge amount of guys and gals, who made their own printer, and they have also made some remarkable machines...
Another thing is that nowadays you can buy a low-end commercial printer for quite cheap (around 300$)and start printing right away, saving the labor, mess, time and possible headaches you were gonna have if designing and building your own one...
So as you understand, regarding this project, there is quite some thinking to be made, and quite some decisions to be taken before you even start building anything!
In my case things were fairly easy though.I didnt have to think too hard, for the simple reason that I like to build stuff! As much as I can, whenever I can. Even if the cost meets the one you'd have when buying a ready-made such machine (or in some cases, even if it exceeds it) I am always a supporter of building your own stuff whenever the circumstances allow it. This way you are developing your skills, you are building a much better understanding of the machine itself, so that you can operate it when done, further develop it, or even troubleshoot it, you can pick the design of it, implement your own style, but most importantly, it is the pure joy of it! Of course, every person is different, but if you ask me there is not much you can compare with creation.. Giving birth to a thingy that was conceived inside your head, and having fun while doing it!
So you guessed right, we are building one! But which one??
Now you could do this in a bunch of different ways. 807
The physics of this machine, along with the broad development of it amongst so many different people, gives you a lot of flexibility when deciding which category your new-to-be-born machine will land into...
Printing technic, geometry, materials used,consumable materials to-be-used, controller's type....you name it!Let's go through those really quick...
For starters, you have to decide which technique it is gonna use to print stuff. The two main choices are FDM(or FFF) and SLA printers.(stereolithography). The later ones use photosensitive resins and uv light which comes out of a screen , to build your model layer by layer. While they definitely have their advantages, we are gonna go with the FDM approach, since it is cheaper to use, to make, and quite a lot more versatile.
Now that we have decided we are building an FDM, we need to think about what materials we will be able to print with this machine. As I said, in those printers the material comes in a form of filament, a plastic string covered around a spool, which is melted and laid down here an there, to produce your 3D object layer by layer. But there is a bunch of different such materials. Luckily though, there is not a too bif of a difference in machine specs, to be able to print between all of them. The most demanding of them usually just require a heated, a heated surface for them to be printed on, so that they don't warp while cooling down, and worst case scenario, they also require an enclosed printing chamber, again for the same reason. 215