Building a 3d PrinterNate Walkner

Collecting parts

Kits are available, but I wanted to do it super cheaply, so I bought components and recycled whenever possible. For power, I used the power supply from a scrap computer. I cut off all of the wires I didn’t need and wired in a power switch. This saved $23

Scouring Ebay

I looked for people who had either failed in their 3d printer build or upgraded. I found a seller who had upgraded and bought a heated bet, rods, printed parts, and nuts and bolts. Total cost $75

Photos of ebay parts

I sawed this black ledge off later-->

These motors didn’t work←

I replaced the glass with aluminum

Electronics

To save money, I ordered electronics directly from China. The total cost was about $60

Odds and Ends

Motors--I made a mistake here and ordered motors scrounged from a Canon copier. The voltage was too high for my electronics, so they were too slow to use. I had to order different ones $100

Extruder--$44 pre assembled. Heavy modifications had to be made to fit it on my printer. I cut a big hole in the extruder carriage, printed 2 13mm rectangular prisms, and drilled holes in them, and zip tied the back end down

Assembly

Since I ordered parts and not a kit, I had to make it up as I went along. The body style was Prusa Mendel I2, but the extruder was I3, some bolts were SAE, others metric. The y-axis table had about 2 inches of unprintable overhang which I sawed off. It had a glass top, which I replaced with ⅛” aluminum. I printed my own z axis couplers because the ones from ebay didn’t fit right.

Z couplers -------------->They connect motors to rods that move the carriage up/down

Programming

To convert the pile into a working printer it had to be programmed. Since my printer was made from random parts, I had to figure out the settings by trial and error. I had to calculate motor rotations per mm, calibrate heat-sensing devices, and program “endstops” so the computer knew where the table was.

I break more stuff!

I put the endstops in backwards, and almost fried the 5v power rail

The Chinese boards had solder bridges that shorted out the motors

My extruder setting was 7000 instead of 100. Filament came out like toothpaste from a stomped-on toothpaste tube

Testing and calibration

Most of this was done over Christmas break. I printed a terrible case for the lcd. The back looked like shag carpeting. I printed 20mm cubes and tweaked settings until the cubes were right, then I printed a more complicated test piece.

Printing replacement parts

Things that I printed and used for the printer

LCD case Z-axis idler mount

Endstop Holders

Z-axis couplers

Cost

Total cost was about $300. A proper kit costs between $400 and $900. If you want to learn a lot about 3d printing, a scratch build may work for you. The labor saved by having a pre-programmed kit may be worth the extra few hundred for sane people that are not card-carrying geeks like me.