Hello all,
I have been researching 3d printers a lot lately since a friend of mine purchased a printrbot kit and has been printing away lately. I find the reprap to be very interesting as it is very customizable.
My friend is currently printing me all of the parts and I am working on getting everything else together. I purchased an Arduino mega and four Pololu stepper drivers as I am interested in building the Pololu electronics. I have found a pretty good guide on how to build them but from what I am seeing this is only for the motors and nothing for the extruder, heated bed, end stops, etc. If anyone has some advice for me or possibly a link to a complete guide on how to build and set up the electronics that would be awesome! I am also open to using any other electronics that will use my Arduino mega and Pololu stepper drivers, it doesn't have to be the Pololu electronics setup. Also any advice on what extruder hot end and stepper motors to buy would be extremely helpful. I am working on a very small budget buying parts a piece at a time and I would like to find some inexpensive stepper motors that aren't going to run me $50 for the 5 motors, but if it comes down to that then I will probably purchase the set of 5 stepper motors for $50. One of my main concerns with the stepper motors was that I am using Wade's geared extruder and I read that you need a stepper motor with at least 40Ncm of holding torque to use that extruder. I have had a really hard time finding the holding torque of any of the stepper motors on eBay, so if anyone knows of some good cheap stepper motors please let me know! As for the extruder hot end/nozzle I am looking for the smallest nozzle I can get so I am able to get the most accurate results and have the layers be small.
Thanks in advance for all the hep everyone!
