How much does it cost to build your own 3D Printer? I want to use an entire room for printing... well, at least most of it. Here are the measurements for the 3D printer I want to build: 10' x 10' x 8'
The only thing that should move is the printer head though because the size of the printer just about takes up the size of the room, making a moveable printing platform impossible.
I also have it in my head to recycle the scrap left behind from printing and use it again for the next print job, provided this is possible. Can someone help me?
Let me make myself perfect clear however:
I want to know the cost to set this up before I do anything. A rough estimate is good enough so long as the cost is not too low.
I... I know this thread is years old... but still kind of feel the need to post something anyway... So that the original post has some sort of definitive answer I guess.
The price estimate is impossible to give. There's the answer.
Why do I say that's the answer? Because NO ONE knows what sort of design is in the guy's head for how he wants to do it. He could make some sort of 'Delta' style printer where there are arms hanging from the edges of the walls (which, personally, I feel may be the cheapest way to go since you'd require WAY less parts).
Why do people keep saying it isn't feasible and such? Because why on earth would you want to 3D print something that large to begin with? I mean.. the poster said something about wanting to print grow beds for aquaponics (which, doesn't seem to be an actual word according to auto correct through chrome, and the dictionary I put the thing through). You would be able to make such things muuuch easier if you just built a smaller CNC machine that cut large pieces of plastic which you could then epoxy together for a water tight seal. You'd be able to make infinitely larger objects that way and not have to use an entire room to do so.
But in any case... Original poster, you seem to be the one having the misunderstandings here. No one is trolling you. You asked for an estimate on how much such a thing cost, and people have given you their answers. You don't like the answers? Then too bad, you asked a question and got a dang accurate response from everyone. Larger objects take an ungodly amount of time to complete at that sort of scale. The accuracy would be seriously degraded. The resolution would be horribly downgraded. The quality over all would just not be good enough. The plastic expands and contracts (mostly contracts), so when it cools, it'll shrink. if you're printing something as big as a room, then the plastic is going to cool off before the first layer is possibly even done. MEANING the second layer will NOT be sitting where it needs to be since the bottom layer could have shrunk. Now, if you took that into consideration with code, then you'd be in an even worse situation. The printer could move in a millimeter or so to compensate, but then what happens when that layer shrinks? You'll just constantly getting pushed inward more and more, until you'd eventually have a really large base but a super tiny top. The whole print would just be thrown off.
Ontop of all that... If you're printing a room sized object inside a room... how the heck would you get it OUT of the room??? It'd be stuck there. But then, you could say "oh well i'd just print it off in small parts and epoxy them together!"... Yea, but then why would you be building a room sized printer then? You could have done all that with a smaller printer or a CNC router with plastic. Or, maybe you're not wanting to make a large object, but a bunch of tiny to medium sized objects all at once. But, that still brings up "why?"... you could do the exact same thing with a smaller printer. Once one batch is done, just remove it and print another. Heck, that's safer to do anyway, because what if something screws up during the print? You could lose every object you were trying to make...
There is just too many things 'wrong' with building a 3D printer that large...
Although with all that said....... It WOULD be fun to try to build one just for the sake of being able to. After thinking about all the potential things that would be hard to do, it definitely has brought to mind some new thoughts on how to do some things. Just need a few super powerful steppers, some lightweight yet strong materials for the gantries, and technically, it could be done... just it wouldn't be all that useful for actual printing.
On the other hand, what about Legos? A machine that is as big as a room could use a tiny grabber and an optical sensor to pick up various colors and sizes, and build a rather larger structure with ease. I know its not the 'typical 3D printing' but its still building a 3D object XD
I... I know this thread is years old... but still kind of feel the need to post something anyway... So that the original post has some sort of definitive answer I guess.
The price estimate is impossible to give. There's the answer.
Why do I say that's the answer? Because NO ONE knows what sort of design is in the guy's head for how he wants to do it. He could make some sort of 'Delta' style printer where there are arms hanging from the edges of the walls (which, personally, I feel may be the cheapest way to go since you'd require WAY less parts).
Why do people keep saying it isn't feasible and such? Because why on earth would you want to 3D print something that large to begin with? I mean.. the poster said something about wanting to print grow beds for aquaponics (which, doesn't seem to be an actual word according to auto correct through chrome, and the dictionary I put the thing through). You would be able to make such things muuuch easier if you just built a smaller CNC machine that cut large pieces of plastic which you could then epoxy together for a water tight seal. You'd be able to make infinitely larger objects that way and not have to use an entire room to do so.
But in any case... Original poster, you seem to be the one having the misunderstandings here. No one is trolling you. You asked for an estimate on how much such a thing cost, and people have given you their answers. You don't like the answers? Then too bad, you asked a question and got a dang accurate response from everyone. Larger objects take an ungodly amount of time to complete at that sort of scale. The accuracy would be seriously degraded. The resolution would be horribly downgraded. The quality over all would just not be good enough. The plastic expands and contracts (mostly contracts), so when it cools, it'll shrink. if you're printing something as big as a room, then the plastic is going to cool off before the first layer is possibly even done. MEANING the second layer will NOT be sitting where it needs to be since the bottom layer could have shrunk. Now, if you took that into consideration with code, then you'd be in an even worse situation. The printer could move in a millimeter or so to compensate, but then what happens when that layer shrinks? You'll just constantly getting pushed inward more and more, until you'd eventually have a really large base but a super tiny top. The whole print would just be thrown off.
Ontop of all that... If you're printing a room sized object inside a room... how the heck would you get it OUT of the room??? It'd be stuck there. But then, you could say "oh well i'd just print it off in small parts and epoxy them together!"... Yea, but then why would you be building a room sized printer then? You could have done all that with a smaller printer or a CNC router with plastic. Or, maybe you're not wanting to make a large object, but a bunch of tiny to medium sized objects all at once. But, that still brings up "why?"... you could do the exact same thing with a smaller printer. Once one batch is done, just remove it and print another. Heck, that's safer to do anyway, because what if something screws up during the print? You could lose every object you were trying to make...
There is just too many things 'wrong' with building a 3D printer that large...
Although with all that said....... It WOULD be fun to try to build one just for the sake of being able to. After thinking about all the potential things that would be hard to do, it definitely has brought to mind some new thoughts on how to do some things. Just need a few super powerful steppers, some lightweight yet strong materials for the gantries, and technically, it could be done... just it wouldn't be all that useful for actual printing.
On the other hand, what about Legos? A machine that is as big as a room could use a tiny grabber and an optical sensor to pick up various colors and sizes, and build a rather larger structure with ease. I know its not the 'typical 3D printing' but its still building a 3D object XD
