Completed Prusa i3 one piece at a time
Posted by daniel_bingamon
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Completed Prusa i3 one piece at a time October 04, 2015 10:40AM |
Back in November last year I started on this. I didn't buy a kit. I purchased one piece at a time on Ebay, Folgertech, Amazon and many other web sites.
I kept a diary of purchases and problems on facebook at: My Reprap Prusa i3 - Let me know if you want to join that group.
Doing it this way worked with the time I had available, budgetary concerns, etc. In the long run, it probably cost a bit more than a kit. It did however give me control over what I wanted to use.
It's set up with a laser cut wood frame, all metal hot end (nylon tube insert) with modified wade style extruder (from Ebay) using 3mm filament. Optical endstops, RAMPS 1.4 board with a cooling fan on it.
The Y-axis bearings are held with wood housings that I made on my SEIG mini mill.
Folgertech thermistor on the hot end with their temperature table added to the Marlin firmware.
For software, I'm currently using Slic3r & Pronterface. I have built Arduino circuits totally from scratch before (although this uses an ATMEGA board) and being a C programmer helps as well.
I can print PLA with it but the nylon insert will easily burn if the temperature gets to high easily with ABS.
I have to say that I'm really happy with the performance of the optical endstops. They are very repeatable. One day I lost power to the steppers when my foot bumped the power cord. It started printing in space. I paused the printing, then homed it and then raised the Z axis to clear and clicked continue and it went on it's way like nothing ever happened. A small line in the printed piece (missing a little material) tells a little story about, that's all.
Today, I'm printing the largest piece that it has ever printed. The large hollow Tardis from thingiverse.
I kept a diary of purchases and problems on facebook at: My Reprap Prusa i3 - Let me know if you want to join that group.
Doing it this way worked with the time I had available, budgetary concerns, etc. In the long run, it probably cost a bit more than a kit. It did however give me control over what I wanted to use.
It's set up with a laser cut wood frame, all metal hot end (nylon tube insert) with modified wade style extruder (from Ebay) using 3mm filament. Optical endstops, RAMPS 1.4 board with a cooling fan on it.
The Y-axis bearings are held with wood housings that I made on my SEIG mini mill.
Folgertech thermistor on the hot end with their temperature table added to the Marlin firmware.
For software, I'm currently using Slic3r & Pronterface. I have built Arduino circuits totally from scratch before (although this uses an ATMEGA board) and being a C programmer helps as well.
I can print PLA with it but the nylon insert will easily burn if the temperature gets to high easily with ABS.
I have to say that I'm really happy with the performance of the optical endstops. They are very repeatable. One day I lost power to the steppers when my foot bumped the power cord. It started printing in space. I paused the printing, then homed it and then raised the Z axis to clear and clicked continue and it went on it's way like nothing ever happened. A small line in the printed piece (missing a little material) tells a little story about, that's all.
Today, I'm printing the largest piece that it has ever printed. The large hollow Tardis from thingiverse.
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