Can a single person with no hands-on experience do a reprap?

Hello,

today I found out about the reprap.
This course I am finishing a degree in mechanical engineering in Spain.

I have thought of doing a reprap for my end of studies project.

I don't have hand on experience.

With energy and dedication will I be able to do it?
How long could it take me to do it?

Thanks.

I have never done anything quite like a 3D printer before, though I do have lots of experence designing things...

I found out about reprap in early Spring/Late winter... and I had a functioning printer (of my own design) in July. Including the extruder.

[araspitfire.blogspot.com]

I had a functioning Mendel less than a month later.

Included in this time was about 3 months of steady reading all things reprap. It was also quite full time... I don't work for a living, so had lots of time to apply to the project.

Al...

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[araspitfire.blogspot.com]

araspitfire Wrote:
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> I had a functioning Mendel less than a month
> later.
>
Wow! I am impressed. It looks so complex.

What about the electronic circuits? Did you buy them or make them?
Where did you buy the steppers, pieces, etc?

Thanks.

I think that if you can assemble a computer and change your own motor oil, you'll be able to assemble a Mendel. you will have to learn some new skills, and being handy with tools helps. in fact, knowing someone with a basement full of tools helps immensely. If you don't have that, you can get by but it will just cost more.

trying to do it all on your own will increase how long it takes to build, but it will give you more time to learn, as well.

the biggest deciding factor here is what you are willing to learn, or want to learn, i have hit a few stumbling blockes lately but i am doing my best to get around them

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

I bought a full RAMPS kit from ultimachine, as I needed everything. It took just 3 or 4 hours from bag to printing for that too. (I own a decent soldering iron with fine tip and know how to use it)

I bought all the hardware from Mendelparts.com as he's very local to me.. I cut my own rods though. (I have an angle grinder, which makes that a 30 minute job)

So, once I had my plastic printed (which cost 1000 euros in the building of XCBot)... I ordered a full kit including belts motors and 6mm thick build platform from Mendelparts.com... I ordered electronics from ultimachine. I had wire, and decent tools.

Perhaps I could have saved a few pennies here and there by sourcing my own hardware... but my experience with XCBot is I always got too much...

Al...



bugler Wrote:
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> araspitfire Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I had a functioning Mendel less than a month
> > later.
> >
> Wow! I am impressed. It looks so complex.
>
> What about the electronic circuits? Did you buy
> them or make them?
> Where did you buy the steppers, pieces, etc?
>
> Thanks.

---

[araspitfire.blogspot.com]

araspitfire and the rest thanks for answering. I am completely lost with this subject. What is XCBot? What is its relationship with a reprap?

So this Mendelparts.com sells a kit which includes everything needed to make the reprap? What is the price of the whole thing kit?

Thanks.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2010 09:38AM by bugler.

When I started out with reprap a few short months ago, it seemed to me (mistakenly as it turnes out) that Mendel plastic was fairly hard to come by.

I decided to design my own working 3D printer based on all the reading that I had done up to that point. I built if from extruded aluminium sections and self-fabricated aluminum parts.

[www.reprap.org] (needs some work)

[araspitfire.blogspot.com]

I overbuilt it intending to mill with it eventually. I like printing on Mendel much more, as it is much quieter (all the plastic absorbs the vibration I think), uses less energy, and fits into a much smaller bit of valuable bench space. Mendel is producing as good as XCBot ever did, which I believe is pretty good on the standard of things.

Al...

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[araspitfire.blogspot.com]

Hey Bugler

If you are studying mechanical engineering then you are most certainly capable of building a printer.

Just be aware that it is a path that can cost some money. I have spent close to £700 so far and do not yet have a working printer, bt that is because I am partying too much and not spending as much time building as I should. Also, I have spend some funds in tooling up with a temperature controlled soldering station and a number of crimpers as well as wire cutters and strippers etc...

It certainly is fun though and I reccomend it if it interests you. There is a lot to learn and it is the problems that cause you to learn rather than when it is simply plug and play.

If I was starting over I would certainly not go for the Gen 3 makerbot style electronics but would probably have gone for something like the pololu solution. There are many various ways the electronics are being done and it seems to be a very fast moving field so some research there is strongly recommeded.

Have fun

You can definitely do it. I had virtually no electronics experience before I make my RepStrap, and very little experience with any other aspect of it. When I started my RepStrap, there were virtually no other RepRaps out there (this was a couple years ago). I built everything myself based on the McWire design, and put together the electronics from a kit. I now have a fully working printer, though I still need to fully calibrate it. I modified the original McWire design to use belts for the X- and Y-axes. I am currently using a MakerBot MK4 extruder, though I hope to switch to a stepper driven one soon. The gear-motor driven extruder just isn't accurate enough and it's hard to control ooze with it.

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A while back, I was going back and forth about how to go about building a RepRap (RepStrap) and basically narrowed my decision down to whether to build a RepRap by sourcing my own parts or whether to buy a RepStrap kit (such as a Makerbot). I also had no hands on experience building mechanical/electrical machines of any sort, but did have an engineering degree. I ended up buying a Makerbot in the end and I think buying from a kit is the best way to go, if you don't have any experience with machines of this sort, but want to learn and experiment. If I was in Europe, I would look for a local kit (mendel-parts.com, ultimaker, Rapman) because the shipping might be too high from the US for a Makerbot. It took me about 10-15 hours (+ some help from a friend, so probably closer to 20-25 total) to build it, and countless hours (and still counting) to master it but at least as many hours to start to be able to run a 2+ hour build (think 120x120x80 mm3). I think working from a kit was the right decision for a number of reasons:

1-it came with all the parts - there is a long Bill of Materials to build a repstrap, many of them small parts in small quantities, so by the time you add in shipping, it's not really cheaper to self source unless you have a tremendous amount of patience and/or are resourceful, experienced, etc. If you're like me and made your decision to build one, you probably want to start quickly.

2-i know it can be built - There are apparently over 2000 makerbots out there before mine (they're numbered) and the instructions are reasonably easy to follow. Even if you build a RepRap, I would suggest checking out the wikis for all the different RepRap/RepStraps out there to get a sense of what's involved. I read all the complete instructions on both the RepRap and Makerbot before making my decision.

3-my machine was not unique - if you don't buy from a kit, there are many variables when things inevitably go wrong. If you know what you're doing, this isn't a problem. If you don't have the experience of working with the parts involved, you better be patient with troubleshooting.

Overall, I feel now that I built a Makerbot, I'm ready to build a RepRap as I've learned a tremendous amount about the electronics (same between Makerbot & RepRap), the extruder (same heating element, different motor), and stepper motors/timing belts/overall cartesian mechanics. So I would say you can definitely build a 3D printer, you just need to think long and hard about how you want to go about it and what's the right (complexity) fit for you.