Challenge - chap 3D printer

That's not exactly what I meant

If I were you I would look into using stepper motors from old printers and buying belts and pulleys to move the pieces, I looked at prices, and belts seem to be the least expensive option, its still not going to be cheap!

Edit: look at things like the reprap

Acme screws are much cheaper... about 50 bucks for a 6 foot length... cut that in half and you have enough for your vertical axis... the horizontal axis on the other hand can be belt driven like any other printer... although there are diffrent challenges depending on who you are and what you have acess to .. some people may have a hard time with the task of the mechanical portion... others will have issues with the electronics...

im actually building a 3d printer out of 3 or 4 old Hp g85 office jetsBuilding a 3D printer out of Hp G85 Office jet printers

if your interested in seeing my progress i will be posting it there

Edit:

most printers are belt driven so you can get  your belts from them and they also have the pullys that fit them...  you just need to make sure you have matching steppers for each drive!

ben it is possible to recycle parts... in most cases the only thing you really need to purchase are  the arduino and sheild boards... along with a hot end... personally im for going the heated bed and other extravagant bits to get this thing working... you can always upgrade later!  $400 is one full pay check for me... thats alot... but its not as bad if its more like 100 to start then 50 here and 50 there over the span of a month or two... slowly upgrading it when you can!

We are not saying it is not possible. Just that the results won't be worth the time and money you put into it. I still have the first 3D printer I built. I put it together from a pile of parts I scrounged up. It worked but the print quality was awful and it was really slow. Eventually I scrapped it and started over with a standard design which is running great.

Lots of factors come into play. The torque of the stepper motors, the ratios of the belts and pulleys, the pitch of the belts, etc, etc. All these things need to be adjusted in the firmware and tuned to get decent results. After while you realize what is killing your quality and reliability is the inconsistency in parts that you got by scrounging. So we usually suggest people avoid months and months or frustration and failure and go with something that's a known quantity.

There are a couple of printers out there for under $300, example the printrbot simple, comes as a kit for $299. It only prints pla since it doesn't have a hotbed, as it comes... If you really want a good print quality you are going to have to spend some $$$, I understand the challenge part, I also tried looking for ways to do a printer without spending too much, ended up spending double just because the individual parts cost more than a full kit...

There's a "race to the bottom" with 3D printers now, with $500 models being shown at CES.

It's rapidly approaching the nexus of it being cheaper to buy one than to build one.

The only reason I see for building one yourself is for the challenge of "doing it yourself". More of bragging that you were able to create it from parts... or If you are into the whole thing, then trying to make a new printer that no one has come up with, for which we are almost out of space for them.... I like the challenge of building something, I'm already planning to buy a simple one from pritrbot, just to finish some parts I'm missing, since mine went down last year, so I can finish my reprap with 14"X16X8" build platform...

"Then,now is the time to make improvements,better designs,faster processing times;all the while driving down the consumer price! Better!...Faster!...Cheaper!"...Fudd's Corollary to Moore's Law.

I would never discourage someone from building a 3D printer. Mostly I am trying to change this perception that you can scrounge a bunch of spare parts and build something that works well and saves you a bunch of money. My experience is when people do this they end up so frustrated they give up on 3D printing or they end up spending more to get it working right then if they had just bought one.

I've built about four myself and helped several other people build theirs. I keep building them because I am often trying new ideas and I just like building them. Also I am not looking for cheap but instead something that has higher quality, speed and the features that I want the most.