Custom builder wanted.

Hello, I need a machine builder. More or less someone to source parts and put a kit together.

This kit will be 2x total numbers as we need 2 identical machines made.

Parameters: must have a build space of 600Mmwx900mmLxby600mmh. Must have a heated bed, we did find a source in China that can supply them. Must have a floating gantry fixed bed. The spool will not mount on the gantry so the only weight with be the head and gantry itself.

Budget for the 2 machines is under $1200 Usd. We want to use a Printrbot board, and an E3d type head. We will 3D print all carriers and stuff so we need everything we can't print. Once the machine are built we will post to reprap for others too.

China parts are fine. We have the time wait for it to come, Geek/Wish/ and any other cheap China sites will do.

Please reply hear or to my email Ryanpivot@gmail.com and we can arrange everything.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2016 11:04AM by RPearce.

1. Learn how to write requirements.
2. Reasonable ----- 900mm length a Gigabot 600x 600x 600 ~$9000
3. Fixed bed --- doesn't exist ---- they move in Z or Y (new technology development)

Custom development
--Clear requirements
----Design
------Design review
------Cost
--Development
------New technology (Fixed bed)
------Mechanical
------Electrical
------Firmware. software
--Integration, Test, operation

$250,000

$600 will get you perhaps 200 x 200 x 200 mm build vollume

See 3ders list of existing printers [www.3ders.org]

Sorry you can't fool reality?

Mmm, if I could build two machines of that 'spec' for that price, I'd keep em

Quote

3. Fixed bed --- doesn't exist ---- they move in Z or Y (new technology development)

what's the heat bed on a delta printer if not fixed

If I were you I would not want anyone who is so bad at math that they'd agree to this deal to build a printer for me.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

The way I figured it, take the Prusa design. But make the bed fixed and make the gantry move in every position. This seemed the best way to accomplish the task.

600Mmwx900mmLxby600mmh
$1200 Usd for 2
designer & builder must take on all the headaches & risk, and source all parts, including the hard to find one.
I'm tempted to offer up $600 and say make me one too, but how would you send it to me, and from where.
I am dying to see what this printer will look like.
Do you think the frame could be made from resin dipped cardboard tubes?

Would be great if there was a $500,000 prize for the final design that makes it under $600

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2016 03:58PM by MechaBits.

Yes, 3DP has approached it that way, so it's certainly possible: [3dplatform.com]

The issue is cost. Large printers don't scale linearly in cost, I suspect you're out by about a factor of 10 just on materials, but I may be wrong. Then there's the time and (skilled) effort involved. At commercial rates cozmic is probably on the low side. But maybe you'll be lucky and find someone who is retired and happy to collaborate with you for cost of materials. Certainly I wish you luck with your adventure!

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the_digital_dentist
If I were you I would not want anyone who is so bad at math that they'd agree to this deal to build a printer for me.

If I were me I wouldnt work on a project for someone who believes they can propose such a brief

You haven't done basic homework on this. Make a list of major components and then look a few of them up to see what the parts alone are likely to cost.
Example: a heater for the bed that size will cost about $300. The bed plate alone will cost about $100. An extruder will cost about $150 (you don't expect someone to design and develop the extruder, too do you?).

Shouldn't there be some other specs besides size and cost? I know that's seems to be what drives the hobbyist market, but when you want a custom machine you probably want it to meet some minimum performance requirements.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2016 03:38PM by the_digital_dentist.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

We already sourced the heaters for $400 for the 2, we want to use E3d heads because we work.with carbon fiber. I don't see 10 Nema motors being outrageous also some the China sites make a complete electronics kit. Though the plan was to use a Printrbot board.

I suppose you want it completed by April the 1st

2 machines for $1200 less cost of heaters @ $200 each == $800 budget to design and build two rather large printers.

2 x E3D hotends == $126 ($63ea not including shipping from Makerfarm - dont expect a chinese clone to even work) leaves $674 for two machines, thats $337 EACH!

RPearce - is this now looking more unrealistic? Your budget will not cover half of the parts required let alone anything else.

I suspect that this is actually not a genuine request. Although if its an early april fools, its original

The gantry will not move with standard 1.7 - 2A NEMA 17 motors, you will need bigger ones. That will make all standard 3D printer electronics useless since the drivers they support don't offer more than 2A.
It seems you haven't done any reasearch on such a machine let alone any kind of realistic pricing for parts and actual work.
Constructing a machine like that will take someone with experience a couple of months, how much are you willing to pay for a 1/4 year of skilled work?

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

Forget I asked. Clearly everyone just wants to say negative things about the idea so what ever, I'll do everything, and I'll do it for $600 Usd a piece and then yah.

Dont take it like that,ppl do have to er on the side of caution, but if it gives you the determination & focus to pull it off, on time & budget, go for it, you sound like you already have a printer to print some parts, but dont have any plans of the type of printer your looking to build.
Where do you want the builder located? I could do with a builder here in Liverpool UK, where are you based?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2016 06:13PM by MechaBits.

Please post details and a BOM and track the number of hours of work you put into it. It will be interesting to see what your hourly wage will be as well as the cost of the machine's parts.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Oh so you ARE a custom builder!

Please post your work --- Post pictures

All of us would love to see TWO
600mm x 900mm X 600mm 3D printers
done for $1200


RPearce

Quote

Forget I asked. Clearly everyone just wants to say negative things about the idea so what ever,
I'll do everything, and I'll do it for $600 Usd a piece and then yah.

Quote
Mutley3D
2 machines for $1200 less cost of heaters @ $200 each == $800 budget to design and build two rather large printers.

2 x E3D hotends == $126 ($63ea not including shipping from Makerfarm - dont expect a chinese clone to even work) leaves $674 for two machines, thats $337 EACH!

RPearce - is this now looking more unrealistic? Your budget will not cover half of the parts required let alone anything else.

I suspect that this is actually not a genuine request. Although if its an early april fools, its original

And just doing a quick calculation on building a frame using v-rail, you are looking at $150+ per printer.

Quote
RPearce
Forget I asked. Clearly everyone just wants to say negative things about the idea so what ever, I'll do everything, and I'll do it for $600 Usd a piece and then yah.

And when you get it done and show it producing some decent prints ill most likely buy one of you for $800, giving you $200 profit for your effort and achievement. I would also expect quite a few others to be most happy to offer you the same. Go forth and prove us wrong, all of us would be most pleased if you did <<< this is a genuine statement!

Quote
RPearce
Forget I asked. Clearly everyone just wants to say negative things about the idea so what ever, I'll do everything, and I'll do it for $600 Usd a piece and then yah.

Denial is always an option, good luck with that

---

[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

Well I think that whilst the comments above have an element of incredulity about them they make a good point about it being ambitious. There's nothing wrong with that, it was ambitious to make a FDM printer out of recycled bits in the first place when the pre-existing model for such a device was a $30,000 machine made by Stratasys.

However if you had approached the forum by stating what you wanted to build, the spec you needed including speed, accuracy, resolution and asked those here present (I am not including myself) who are capable of building this; what it might cost, how long it might take and what the hurdles to overcome are, then you would have received mainly enthusiastic responses.

As has been said the issues with large printers are that size on one dimension has a cube relationship to mass of the overall system, including moving mass of components. I worked out that to literally scale up a corexy printer like the smartrapcore alu to a 100cm frame instead of 40cm frame increases the mass by 15 times. Because of this a fairly standard printer with a 20cm cubed print volume is now easy to achieve cheaply mainly due to chinese parts. For your large printer you could begin to substitute components like aluminium frames for exotic lightweight materials such as carbon fibre or it might not matter at this scale if stiffness is reduced by small amount so you could get away with lighter (but still considerably more hefty) components, it depends on what quality of output you expect. Maintaining 0.1mm accuracy in a large printer is costly and difficult, but 1mm accuracy should be much easier to achieve.

If your costings are a starting point and you have some contingency for the inevitable issues that will arise you can hopefully get there. I'd be keen to see what you finally come up with. Good Luck.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2016 07:17AM by DjDemonD.

Good reply DJ. I'm feeling distinctly uncomfortable about my initial response now, I didn't mean to contribute to a bashing. For sure large printers are achievable (but challenging) and we should be encouraging the OP in his endeavours. I certainly wish him every success, and hope to learn from the progress, as I too would like a larger printer some day.

Your not looking for a "Designer" your looking for a volunteer. Even if you could source the parts to do that for $600/machine there would be nothing to pay for the time/labor involved in the design and assembly. I don't know many designers that work for free.

OK a design possibility
but --- bed moves

Use Ordbot Hadron design

I have built one and upgraded a lot

[www.buildlog.net]

Use longer makerslides / belts

Five Makerslide 1000mm $21.00 each
Y axis will need two slides to support bed

[www.inventables.com]

I got plenty of upgrades to design
ie. use a box beam across bottom that holds the motors

Oh no I am getting sucked in!!!!

Quote
cozmicray
OK a design possibility
but --- bed moves

Use Ordbot Hadron design

I have built one and upgraded a lot

[www.buildlog.net]

Use longer makerslides / belts

Five Makerslide 1000mm $21.00 each
Y axis will need two slides to support bed

[www.inventables.com]

I got plenty of upgrades to design
ie. use a box beam across bottom that holds the motors

Oh no I am getting sucked in!!!!

We have decided to use a 1/4" thick piece of aluminum that is 4x8ft we are going to make it 4x4 then make each into a C channel that puts the bed elevated 2" then stamp holes down it and attach the remaining material so there is 1/4" rails then the physical bed will be 3ftx 4ft and that will allow decent over hang. I think it's like $250 to do all of this. In Canadian. I'll keep you up to date as we go.

Do you have a back of a napkin drawing, or better a CAD drawing.
Changes on drawing cost little, changes in metal big cost.

You failed to mention that you have a shear to cut 1/4' stock
and a break to handle 4 ft --1/4" metal
and stamp to punch 1/4" metal

Please select an Aluminum alloy that will bend without cracking / tearing

$250 for a 4x8ft plate of aluminum wow good price?

Quote

$250 for a 4x8ft plate of aluminum wow good price?

Um, not even close at any sort of retail. The best prices I know of are at onlinemetal.com, and 4x8' comes out at 830 usd. Perhaps we're talking about 4 inches x 8 feet? That runs about 35 USD a piece in .25" thickness.

Pearce. I only partially understood your description og the setup. Can you elaborate or take a pic?

I think what you are saying is that you have aluminum plate with c channel on two ends. I like your approach because i am a huge fan of using common raw materials versus purpose designed extrusions and what not, but juat be aware of the ASTM specification for flatness in an aliminum sheet. I dont know it off hand but i bet even somethibg well inside the tolerances prescribed by ASTM will be too non planar over that distance to run prints without running a multipoint auto tramming routine.

Might be a good idea to make it from chinese steel, the news is they dumping tons of it real cheap,
and at the same time closing factories/forges (if they close too many prices might rise, so get it now while its going cheap).
UK can't compete, just at the time a new process for more useful crumpling steel comes on line, we could have evolved instead they choose extinction, with a little push from government, the myth of british steel being the best...not now the indians know the secret ingredients, got my 12mmx500mm rods real cheap...unfortunatly one's bent & the shine's not the same, by about 1-2mm, the other is fine, just have to wait another month for the replacement...perhaps I should have got another set 1000mm long.