Help! (X,Y & Z carriages)

Hey, I am a new rep user and I am currently looking to go about building a 'repstrap' however I did some looking around and by making the print bed on the Z carriage and having the extruder on the X & Y axis increases quality of your prints. Is this right?

If so, I was trying to work out how I would go about putting the extruder on the X & Y axis and the only way I could work out doing the base on a Z axis is by using 4 stepper motors which is pricey and not efficient so if anyone could come up with a way in which to do this that would be great!

As I am a new user I couldn't really work out to put a post like this so I put it in here.

Thanks,
Master_Wither

Hi Master_Wither, welcome to the forums!

It might be worth flicking through the original designs on the wiki to see how RepRaps have evolved. The original 'Darwin' had a moving X/Y carriage above a lowering Z-bed. That gave way to the Mendel with the X-Z carriage above the Y-axis bed, same with the Prusa i3 (what I've got). Axial movement is a negligible effect on quality of prints, compared to acceleration, temp settings, bed adhesion, filament etc. Seems simplest to follow where others have pioneered in terms of axes movement.

For simplicity, assuming you will be using RAMPS electronics, with NEMA17's and a hotend, then these 3 items were 70% of my total parts expenses. I found it more efficient to just invest in a quality Prusa Alu frame and be sure of the result, than try and DIY a wooden frame or box.

To save the cost of that last 30%, you could build a Duct Tape RepStrap to then print your own mounting brackets...

Thanks for your reply, it was really helpful.

However your reply has managed to create a few more questions that google just fails to answer for me:

For a start, I was looking around at the RAMPS electronics boards and saw so many fluctuations in price from £15 - £150 so I we wondering where did you buy yours from. Also looking at my components the NEMA17's (5), my hotend and my RAMPS I calculate to only cost me around £150 (averaging out the RAMPS prices) and then about £50 more for my print bed, frame, etc. so if you don't mind me asking, how much did your printer cost?

In addition, how good is the quality of your printer? And if you have any pictures of prints that would be great!

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my original post and hope that it's not to hard to reply to this post.

Master_Wither