"Building Your Own 3D Printer"

I've spent the last 3 days writing an introductory guide to the Prusa Mendel tentatively titled "Building Your Own 3D printer":

EDIT: the document has moved:

[reprapbook.appspot.com]

The objective is:

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to give new community members one document that contains most of what they need to know before they start building.

The document isn't entirely finished yet but it has come to a stage where I'm looking for your feedback. Is this at all useful? What should be changed? What's missing? What should be removed?

Please add your feedback below. thx

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2011 03:16AM by sdevijver.

I think it would be very helpful. I started my first prusa build about a month ago and its so confusing for new comers because of the amount of available information not to mention the part variants of the Prusa alone.

I am also making notes of my build and noted some of the frustrations along the way, specially my friend's. He has trouble assembling Ikea furniture and knows squat about electronics and intentionally left him alone assembling his just to document what its like for complete non-hacker/maker to build one of these things and its not pretty. So something like a bible/central/all_u_need_info_is_here document will definitely help.

For me its the mention of the variant parts/extruders/hotends/electronics is on top of my list.

Good Luck and make sure to use lots of illustrations.

This hasn't been commented on much, but it does look good so far.
definatly on of the docs I'll be refering to when I build mine.

Just wanted to add my encouragement to this effort. I've yet to build a printer for a number of reasons including a lack of clear and concise build documentation.

As a mechanical engineer the mechanical assembly doesn't scare me to much. I am certain that I could muddle through. Without my mechanical background I wouldn't have bothered being interested beyond the first half-hour. This guide helps in that respect, but does need to be easily found by newcomers.

The electronics seem very confusing. This document helped a bit with that, but could still use some clarification of jargon and removal/explanation of abbreviations.
The software seems like it is in an even worse state for the reprap project, so any info that can be added with this guide is great.

I hope that critique is helpful.

Tyro

I would have to agree.

The electronics are skated over in most build logs - perhaps because the "official" RAMPS kits etc are simply plug this one here and that one there, but for a newcomer like myself, who is buying on the street in the Philippines, the lack of detail has been painful.

I made the all day journey to Manila and bought my Arduino clone board (only thing available in country) and some microstepping driver cards. Was not till I got home I realised that I do not have a way to connect these together.

I 'could' use the fan attachment pads removed from an old motherboard - only they are in another country. So I am faced with another drive to Manila and another fun day out.

Now if I knew what a shield was - and that shield was not a fancy name for the small pcb the arduino was mounted on....

Still, I found the work in progress clearly written,and offer Kudos for your efforts. I am sure I will refer back to that page before I finish my current (first) build.

Thank you,
Bill

Excellent if I had found this a few weeks earlier it would have saved me a fair few posts on these forums and a lot of searching for specific articles.

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Tyro
The electronics seem very confusing. This document helped a bit with that, but could still use some clarification of jargon and removal/explanation of abbreviations.
The software seems like it is in an even worse state for the reprap project, so any info that can be added with this guide is great.

I hope that critique is helpful.

Thanks for the feedback, I found it very helpful. Both the electronics and software sections will be reworked entirely in the next couple of days: I'm currently converting from google docs to docbook, after that is done I'll continue working on the content again.

I'll be posting updates here.

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BillC54
I made the all day journey to Manila and bought my Arduino clone board (only thing available in country) and some microstepping driver cards. Was not till I got home I realised that I do not have a way to connect these together.

I 'could' use the fan attachment pads removed from an old motherboard - only they are in another country. So I am faced with another drive to Manila and another fun day out.

Now if I knew what a shield was - and that shield was not a fancy name for the small pcb the arduino was mounted on....

Still, I found the work in progress clearly written,and offer Kudos for your efforts. I am sure I will refer back to that page before I finish my current (first) build.

Keep watching this space for updates. I'll work on the electronics section in the near future and make it oriented towards learners instead of a cold citation of facts.

It's a good start.

However regarding the sanguino, we have 8 computers in our house and the only one that will upload firmware using the Arduino host is a Vista laptop, none of the other computers a mix of win7 and XP will even see the board to uplaod firmware updates

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

Awesome introduction! Really clarifies and distills the a lot of the crucial information that's all over the forums! Great work!

The one comment I have: The picture is stretched vertically, not a big deal, just pointing it out.

Excellent stuff - well done! As a complete newbie myself (well, with about 2 months experience since I started my Prusa build, and first parts just starting to come off my machine now - does that make me an "old hand"? ), I have also had issues with being somewhat overwhelmed at all the options available, and all the different web sites you need to visit to get your head around it all. I have bookmarked this for future reference.

(I assume you do realise what a huge job you are undertaking, to keep this page more or less current as the technology continues to evolve rapidly? )

Cheers!

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Follow my Mendel Prusa build here: [julianh72.blogspot.com]

I am looking forward to reading this!!

>Is this at all useful?
I found the document the other day, not via this forum. I found it most useful.

> What should be changed?
Elaborate on where/how the Kapton tape gets used could be added.

Thanks for writing an excellent resource.

Mike

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2011 02:57PM by 3D2B.