cheap DIY 3d printers

I built a MendelMax 1.5 for about $450.  Very sturdy unit.

Dear Roy,

  I'm a mentor for a high school robotics team and as part of our off-season learning projects we are also building a MendelMax 1.5.

  Yesterday we got most of the electronics installed and ran a test print in the "air".  We have not installed the print bed yet so we just moved the z zero up a few inches and let it run.  Worked fine, amazingly enough, but I shouldn't have been suprized, my kids are pretty smart.

  In anycase, we'd love to chat with you about your experiences (since as you, ours is widely sourced and home built) about your experiences.  It would be great to understand your print platform and which up-grades (since it seems 10 come out a day) you are pursueing.

  If you're interested, I can be reached at:

docdavies2005@gmail.com

Doc

Hey Daniel

To build a printer for 100GBP($153) is going to be hard to do.  The cheapest i have been able to build a printer for was around $300 and thats because i was able to print all the parts off another printer i owned.  The printer Billy posted is a little over your budget bud not far off.

Nate

Hey Billy

When you say mod it what exactly do you mean?  To get it to work with a notebook all you do is plug it into the usb port same goes for the 3d scanner.

Nate

i want to put the notebook on the frame of the 3d printer and expand   the 3d printer by 3ft len by3ft deep by 3ft tall and add a portable hard drive to it beside the 3d scaner it the cheaper way i can go  with the skills i have

im a noob at this

i do armor builds iam thinks about use the 3d printer for that but it use a  programm of pepakura viewer that prints on card stok

what do you plan on using the notebook and hard drive for?  I do most my modeling on my desktop then put the model on a sd card and plug into my ramps board and print from that.  As far as making the printer bigger by 2' would be nice in theory but you will lose accuracy big time trying to accomplish that.

Nate

well like i said  im a noob at this and dont no the limits let

Not a problem Billy.  If you have any questions while your doing the mod just let me know.  I will see what i can do for you.

Nate

ok do u have a old one  that i could buy from u to lean on

Hey Billy

I currently dont have any extra printers laying around.  I had one but my 3 year old son wanted it in his room.  I dont think he would like me taking it away. 

Nate

Hey Billy

I currently dont have any extra printers laying around.  I had one but my 3 year old son wanted it in his room.  I dont think he would like me taking it away. 

Nate

ya  my son and daughter want to see some toys  being made by one

i get the a6 ht  but then i have to wait 6 to 10 weeks for it but first have to save for it and get a note book so i can have alot of op to play with

Hey Billy

That is a long time to wait.  I was looking a the makebox website and dont see what firmaware they are using on the board and what software they use to communicate from the computer to the printer.  All the printers i have built in the past used Pronterface to interface the computer to printer board.  The board i either used Sprinter or Marlin but changed to only use marlin now.  As for the modelling software i use Autodesk 123D Design and for the model slicing software i use Slic3r.  All these are free. Do you happen to know what they are using on the Makibox machines?

Nate

i ben looking its still in beta mode rigth and the cost of a6lt is in my price range

Hi there, It might be a bit late for an answer, but I just stumbled upon this thread after checking Ben's newest video (which is awesome btw ).

I'm the Community Manager of Makible (the company behind the MakiBox) and also one of the Beta testers.

We have our own Firmware that is based on Sprinter running on a Printrboard Rev B.

While we are also developing our own Host-Software (5DPrint), I can confirm that the MakiBox works with pronterface, Repetier-Host and also OctoPrint.

It's true that we're still somewhat in Beta, but the final design stands and we are currently looking at finally starting production in mid June, if all goes well.

Since we reached our goal of 1000 sales, we'll soon release our design files to the public.

Hey justMaD

What made you guys go with Sprinter as your base not Marlin?  How similar is your firmware to Marlin as this is based somewhat off of Sprinter?  Can you talk more about your host software 5DPrint like what features its going to have that makes it different from the ones on the market, is it going to work with other printers, is it going to be opensource.  I primarily use Pronterface as my host software and would say that its one of the best on the market and its free.  If you ever want someone to test anything of yours(MakiBox)  let me know as ive been into 3d printering for years and have built numerous printers myself.   Thanks in advance!

Nate

The Firmware was long decided before I even joined the team.

We're using Printboard Rev B for the electronics and according to http://reprap.org/wiki/Printrboard#Compatible_Firmware Sprinter was a good and fully supported choice, whereas Marlin was not officially supported.

I can't really say anything about the differences, as I have nothing to do with the development and no experience with other firmwares yet.

We have open repositories for our firmware and 5DPrint on github and bitbucket (which aren't regularly updated right now). I guess we'll have to figure out, which one to go with in the future, since both will be a hassle to manage.

https://bitbucket.org/makible/makibox-firmware for the firmware (most current)

You can ignore the 5d-print repo on bitbucket for now, as that is very old.

The more up-to-date version is on github: https://github.com/Makible/5DPrint , but internally our dev has changed a lot already and will commit it again, once he's somewhat sure, there aren't any major bugs.

That being said, yes, it is (or will be) open source

For the first release iteration, it's going to have only basic functionality: manual control of all axes and heaters, loading GCode, starting, pausing/resuming and stopping a print. Somewhere further in the future we might add slicing (maybe cloud-slicing) capabilities.

But for now it's really only controlling.

Similar to OctoPrint, it's a server application that is controlled through a browser.

5DPrint is completely written in GO, which is capable of creating binaries for all major operating systems (win, linux, mac os) and also first tests on a RPi were promising.

It's geared somewhat towards our MakiBox (and possibly future printers) right now, but support for other printers should be relatively easy to add.

Generally it might not be something very special right now, but it's our step in making 3d printing more easy to understand and control for beginners.

If that doesn't appeal to our customers, they can still use pronterface, OctoPrint or Repetier-Host, which all work fine for me

We got a lot of volunteers for testing lined up, but if you're serious about it, you might want to drop a line to cusomer support with some reasons why we should choose you.

We're currently looking into possibly starting a last round of betas.

Edit: speak of the devil, we released an update today with some pics and a video of 5DPrint: http://www.makibox.com/blogpost/items/go_5d

Hey justMaD

Thanks for the explanations about your products.  I will have to follow your guys progress on 5D-print as the video looks promising.  I will also have to drop support an email when i get a chance.

Nate

hey nate can u help me with that

Hey Billy

I sure can help you.  What exactly do you need help with?

Nate