Building my first 3d printer! repstrap??

I think that is what it is called...as i intend on sourcing most of the parts by reusing stuff, at the moment im only going small so i can just sort of get into the whole thing, so dvd rom drives at the ready!

After get use to it thats when i will go big!

So can anyone suggest which is more suited to something like this? a ramps or adruno? tbh i dont the difference as ive never used either before!

Thanks

Knowing where in the world you are located will surely help people to help you, as certain items are more readily available (or sell for significantly less money) in one part of the world or another.....

Ah i see, well im in the uk if that helps

Quote
stormrazer
I think that is what it is called...as i intend on sourcing most of the parts by reusing stuff, at the moment im only going small so i can just sort of get into the whole thing, so dvd rom drives at the ready!

DVD roms are going to be useless. They're fine if you're doing a pocket laser engraver but they don't have the size or the strength for a 3D printer. The drive mechanisms also aren't going to be big enough to make of anything useful. People have reused other parts from printers, copiers, etc, but most surplus parts from eScrap is going to be difficult to work with, if not realistically possible to begin with. You sound like a novice, which isn't a bad thing, it's just that you need to temper your expectations of what is needed.

Quote

So can anyone suggest which is more suited to something like this? a ramps or adruno? tbh i dont the difference as ive never used either before!

Going along with a novice, before diving in, you'll need to learn a lot more about the components. An Arduino is a particular brand of microcontroller. There are many different models of Arduinos (or clones of the official model) but one that's used most often is referred to as an Arduino Mega. Onto this board plugs in a breakout board, or shield in Arduino lingo, named RepRap Arduino Mega Pololu Shield or RAMPS for short. This takes the input and output pins, rearranges them and combines them with some other basic electronic components, stepper drivers, and power connectors into what gets used with a 3D printer. There is no intelligence really with the RAMPS board...all the thinking is done by the underlying Arduino MEGA.

RAMPS isn't the only electronics. There's derivatives of RUMBA and RAMBO, as well as completely different boards that still have all the basic functioning parts, but are on a single PC board, have a different layout, or are just...different.

A RepStrap is a printer that you boostrap into building your RepStrap printer. You use basic non-3D printed parts to initially get the printer going, then replace them with better 3D parts after it's working. If you are going to go down the RepStrap path, I would STRONGLY, STRONGLY recommend still getting a decent amount of your "vitamins" (non-printable parts) as parts designed for what you're going to use them as. Get real stepper motors, linear rods, linear bearings, belts, etc. Investing in the right parts the first time is going to save you a ton of frustration in the long run. There's enough already just dealing with good parts, let alone some off brand motor that you can't find anything about as it's a specialty part for some giant printer or driver manufacturer.

Thank you for the information! that's the sort of reply i was looking for, although the main idea behind using the dvd drives is i can build something small that i can get to grips with that wont break the bank, im pretty good with electronics as it is, plus building things in general.

So that side of thing.....i'm good there if i can build a speaker dock from scratch using a mobile phones internals i'm sure i will have pretty good luck with reusing parts, heck i even thought about buying the parts to solder the boards together to save some more cash but without the know how with the boards im stuck and trying to find the information online is shocking at the mo as your right i'm a novice when it comes to 3d printing XD

But i want to learn i just need to find the main electronic side of things and start with buying them and learning about them. So any suggestions on that? i spend alot of time researching on the laptop so some links are always good.

Im guessing the adruino mega and the ramps 1.4 is what i'm going to need to go for?

Plus i though i should note the motors i will be using are going to be changed

Again thank you very much for the info mate

Arduino Mega and RAMPS is showing its age now. It has barely enough processing power to run a delta printer. The world has moved on to 32 bit 3D printer control boards such as the Duet and the Smoothieboard, both with native USB and Ethernet ports, digital control of stepper motor currents, and far more processing power. The RAMPS/Arduino combination still has the advantage of being very cheap if you buy clone boards made in the far east, so I guess its still a reasonable choice if you are on a tight budget.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].