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Building a 3D printer vs. Buying one

Former Member

I have been looking into building a 3D printer for myself and the hardware part of it seems simple enough but the only part I am not confident in doing is the controller part of it. I was thinking about using the controller from printrbot (link) and possibly change some peramiters if I needed to for the increased size of my print area. Would this work if I made a custom 3D printer with about 20'' by 20'' print area? (don't know how high I want it to go) I figured it was easier to use this controller than using an arduino and learning how to do that. Any help would be apreciated.

 

My other though was to just buy the printrbot simple for $299 which only has a print area of about 4 inches cubed and use that to get started as I have never had any experience with 3D printers. Possibly after that I could use that controller to make a larger one? Any thoughts?

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  • Hey Kristopher

    The printrboard will work with a larger printer as long as you scale up the x,y,z values to match your print area.  Below is shown in the marlin firmware.

    #define X_MAX_POS 130
    #define X_MIN_POS 0
    #define Y_MAX_POS 130
    #define Y_MIN_POS 0
    #define Z_MAX_POS 107
    #define Z_MIN_POS 0

     

    If your looking to print at the scale your talking about then i would recommend you use the mendelmax type design.  This design uses extruded alumninum tubing helping with the rigidity problems associated with others.

     

    Nate

  • in reply to Nate1616

    I figured that all I had to do is change a couple peramiters but now I know for sure, thank you.  I have decided to buy the printrbot simple so that I can get a few ideas about how everything works together and if I have any problems with the one I want to build I can look to that to help me out.  Also I will check out the mendelmax design as you said and hopefully I can get a few more ideas on how I want to build mine.

     

    Do you by chance know what the typical resolution of a home made 3D printer is? I want to achieve the .1mm that most of the 3D printers have. I assume that it is just a matter of build quality and how much "slop" you have in your movements.

  • in reply to Former Member

    It would be hard to put a number to the typical resolution but, if setup right, should have no problem reaching the .1mm resolution.  The build quality does have some effect on resolution along with print speed, was the machine calibrated, nozzle size but most of it is from the extruder and print height used.

     

    Nate

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