MendelMax build... Costing

Hi,

I'm just looking into building a 3D printer and I really like the look of the MendelMax mainly due to the use of aluminium profile over threaded bars.

However, the only kit I've fould is about £1000 whereas I have found a prusa mendel kit for about £400!

I've tried to tot up a rough cost of acquiring all the parts myself and I'm currently at just under £400 with a few bits still to price up, I was wondering if someone could give me a rough estimate of how much the remaining bits would cost?

Also would it be possible to just buy the prusa mendel kit and upgrade the threaded aluminium bars with aluminium profile?

Prices are listed below:

Arduino 2560 - 1 [40]
Pololu A4988 Stepper Drivers - 5 (4 used, useful to have 1 as a spare) }
Ramps PCB (Fully Assembled) - 1 [60]
Mk2 Heatbed, with thermistor and glass/mirror - 1 [20]
248mm x 280mm x 3mm Aluminium plate for the Y table - 1 [?]
158mm x 280mm x 3mm Aluminium plate for the Y table - 1 [?]
Microswitches - 3 [?]
GT2 Pulleys - 2 [10]
GT2 Belt - 2 [5]
300mm Extrusions - 4 }
340mm Extrusions - 4 }
420mm Extrusions - 6 [60]
T Nuts, suitable for the supplied Extrusions - 100 [?]
Blind Joint Screw - 8 [?]
Nema 17 Stepper Motors - 5 [60]
J Head - Hotend - 1, 0.5mm as standard, other options exist [50]
8mm Smooth Rod x 405 - 2 [?]
8mm Smooth Rod x 420 - 2 [?]
8mm Smooth Rod x 445 - 2 [?]
A complete set of printed parts including prints to create Greg's accessible extruder [80]
Hardware kit for Greg's accessible extruder [?]
12V 20A Power Supply - 1 [?]
TR10x2D Nuts - 2 [?]
TR10x2D 300mm leadscrews - 2 [?]
608-ZZ Bearings x 4 [?]
LM8UU Linear Ball Bearing Slide Bush Bushings - 12 (6 pairs) [?]
Arcol Hyena Hobbed Bolt (M8 x 60mm) - 1 [?]
Reprap Wiring set - 1 [?]
4 Wire Motor Cable Kit - 1 [?]
Assorted Hardware consisting of 100 x M4 stainless steel [?]
cap screws, washers, as well as numerous other sizes to
assist with the building of the MendelMax

TOTAL 375

Thanks,
Ben

I'm currently building a prusa mendel, but so I'm not too sure about anything that's mendel max specific, but here's some prices and sources of materials I'm planning to order myself.


Microswitches - I'm not sure if you mean the small boards or just the switches themselves, I'm planning to DIY these, so I'm just going to pick the switches themselves up on ebay or an electronics supplier for a couple of euro for several switches.

Smooth Rods - I'm going to order these from farnell in the UK, they come in one meter lengths, at £2.62 not including VAT, shipping isn't too bad, I'm getting it delivered to Ireland and the shipping only adds about €6.

Power Supply - I'm planning to order this really cheap PC PSU from dabs, it has 30A on the 12V line, so it should be more than enough, you would have to modify it a bit to use it with RAMPs though. It's totals to €20 with delivery to Ireland.

Lead Screws - I suspect you can get these at farnell aswell.

608ZZ Bearings - I salvaged some from an old skateboard that was being thrown out, but you should be able to buy 4 on ebay for less than £6.

Wire - I'm going to use a roll of light mains wire for my motors, heat bed and extruder, and then I'm going to use telephone solid core wire for the rest. I'm not sure what price it is to get this in a hardware or electrical shop because I already had some spare but it should be pretty cheap.


Where are you getting your belts and pulleys? I'm trying to find some for around that price.

---

-Richard

[tynan.me]

Hi Richard, sorry I sort of forgot I posted this question!

If you're still in need of a belt and pulleys try this ebay auction, looks to be a pretty good deal: [www.ebay.co.uk]

if it's no longer available ebay has others for around the £20 mark for both parts.

For any people looking for a bill of materials to work at pricing parts up individually try these:

MendelMax 1.5 - [docs.google.com]

MendelMax - [docs.google.com]

Ben

Hi,

You said that you were buying GT2 belts though. The ones you linked are T5?

---

-Richard

[tynan.me]

Well Spotted Richard! Saved me a bit of time there, unfortunately that brings me to a new problem, the only real place I can seem to fing the GT2 Belt & pulleys is at creativemachines, bringing the total cost up to £32

Let me know if you find any alternatives!

I have the same problem too :/ I'm looking for GT2 or HTD belts but I may have to go for T5 because of cost. techpaladin.com has them for a good price, with very good shipping, but they're out of pulleys right now.

---

-Richard

[tynan.me]

Ben,

Are you by chance anywhere near the West Midlands area?
I have extrusions, Tnuts, end caps etc for a planned build I'm not likely to get around to anytime soon.
Originally from KJN in the UK (note I think KJN a different M size to the Techpaldin spec).
If you just want prices I think they have an online system which you can use to price up.


Mike

It is going to take time, and my suggestion is to build in affordable stages.
Most of the items are available at a good hardware shop, on eBay, or in
well documented instructions on this site.

I am still building a bespoke machine after 3 months!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2012 12:29AM by Scrachbuilder.

I spent the past 1 month to optimize the MendelMax BOM so that it can be offered at a very affordable price.
For $699, you get a complete MendelMax 1.5 kit.

It is available at my eBay store http://stores.ebay.com/Blomker-Industries

Cheers

Hi blomker crew,
I treid to order at your site http://blomker.com but delivery country option is only to Malaysia ?
I'm in Netherlands.

SIR,
WE CAN SUPPLY THE 10meter GT2 open Belts for Rostock, reprap, prusa, mendel, cnc at resonable cost
my email id is ramukatrapwar@rediffmail.com from india