Building my first Reprap... Anyone near Chippenham, Wilts?

Hi, all you Reprappers!

I have been lurking in the forums for a while and finally decided to start my journey into 3D printing by building a Mendel Prusa. After looking into self-sourcing, I decided to buy a kit from thereprapkitstore.co.uk.

Over the years I have built (and designed) lots of electronics, written tons of software, and even turned a few things on a lathe, but building a machine that can make things is quite a daunting prospect!

Now, whilst I am aware of the SW User Group, I wondered if there are any other people in the Chippenham (Wiltshire) area who have done this? The whole idea was invented in Bath, so I'm hoping so...

The waiting has begun - a few weeks before the kit arrives, so I must clear a space in my kitchen ready for the build to begin in earnest!

Cheers all!

Lee

Lee I'm in Cheltenham, not to far away!
I'm about to embark on a self sourced self build of an Abs Prussa.

My main concern Is the electronics. It sounds like we may be able to assist each other

Duncan

Hi Duncan,

Cheltenham isn't far away, we can work together on this.

Cheers,

Lee

Sounds Good to me.

I have sourced most of what i need (i think) so when it all turns up the head scratching begins in earnest !!

Duncan

I am in Northamptonshire. Just built a bastardised laserised Frankenstein of a MendalMax, Used that to create a proper MendalMax, which is halfway through built and just printing parts for a Rostock. Not bad for starting 3 weeks ago. If you need any help I might be able to help. Not promising..lol

Thanks for all of your comments - Well, I received an email from James at reprapkitstore.co.uk, and my kit should be shipping Thurs/Fri...

I have my children this weekend, so will get started on it next week. This is exciting!

Lee

Well, I have received the kit. Everything on the packing list is there - two declared shortages, the Z axis tubing and the extruder hobbed bolt. Waiting for a reply from James at thereprapkitstore as to when these items will be shipped...

Built the frame last night, got to the point where I'm going to need the tubing so in the absence of a reply from James it looks like I'm going to the garden centre/pet shop over the weekend for some tubing.

The kit itself is quite comprehensive, although as the hot end is supplied as a kit of parts I'm going to have to find some suitable high temperature 'glue' to mount the heater resistor and bulb thermistor (the kit doesn't include the heat resistant glue).

This is certainly easier than sourcing everything myself for the first build...

Lee

i am half way around the globe, and i am planning my first reprap. i dont think there is any reprapper in south east asia LOL !!! i have been studying the cartesian model with much excitement.

i received my RAMP 1.4 board yesterday. arduino is somewhere lost in the mail system plus a couple of other stuff LOL !!!

i have spoken with some filament suppliers down at new zealand.

and i cant sleep thinking about building this machine from scratch, i keep scouring ebay, amazon, surplus webs, emailing non-stop with machinists in germany, etc to make parts.

i am going nuts !

Hi Redreprap,

It is an exciting time ahead - I picked up some of the missing bits over the weekend (I was away so couldn't do any building).

The kit that I received makes things a lot easier. Looking at the parts list, a lot of it is available from standard hardware stores, with probably the hardest bits to find being the smooth rods. I started looking at sourcing all the parts myself but decided that for the extra cost of the kit I would let someone else do it.

Drop me a line if I can be of assitance, although there are many helpful people here on the forum..

Cheers,

Lee

tnx, i will sure dig for more help from pros in this forum !

yea i did though of just grabbing the original reprap kit from UK, and prolly make a bigger 1 from using it. then i though i had tons of time on my hand and the size of that unit was not quite what i like in the end build and it will just cost me extra, so i go the way of a build from "scratch" by looking at tested models.

i think i might just make a wood frame for starters. it will def help me see what else would pop out half way for such an untested build hahahaha !

Hi Redreprap,

Buying the kit makes things easier, but it looks like I will be making my own hobbed bolt at this rate, as it was a declared shortage in the shipped kit and James at thereprapkitstore.co.uk is failing to acknowledge or answer emails again.

Other than warping if the humidity/temperature changes, there is a lot of mileage in using wood to build your frame. Are you planning on building a Repstrap first in order to print parts for a bigger and better machine in the future? My main reason for building the prusa is as a step towards building a more robust machine that can mill pcbs as well as print parts.

Lee

nope, im not making a smaller reprap first. ill be building it all up by scouring hardware stores n online parts. so that why i had to use more wood for the "starter edition" so i can screw/bolt up parts where ever they should be esp the extruder and filament steppers etc.

yea, i stay near equator, wood warping def will be a downer. i just made some shelves from some old pile of ply pieces and some of them are concave hahahaha ! damn !

so when it does come together