Is this right?

I am looking into building my own RepRap, however I have a very low budget. On eBay I believe I have found all of the parts necessary excluding the build platform, and smooth and threaded rods, for under 400. Here are the links to the parts I have found, let me know if I am forgetting anything:

Set of 5 NEMA 5 servos:
[www.ebay.com]

Timing Belt:
[www.ebay.com]

RepRap RAMPS 1.4 with drivers and cables:
[www.ebay.com]

J-Head Hot end:
[www.ebay.com]

.2mm Nozzle for J-Head:
[www.ebay.com]

RepRap metric hardware:
[www.ebay.com]

RepRap Plastic kit v2 w/ bearings:
[www.ebay.com]

600W power-supply:
[www.ebay.com]

8"x8" heated bed:
[www.ebay.com]

Thank you in advance for any help. If this is in the wrong forum I apologize.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2013 09:04PM by geoffmiles.

You are in exactly the right place.

There are some things you should know.

1.) Whatever plastic parts you buy make sure they are ABS, not PLA, especially the X-carriage.

2.) Those motors may work, but not for a wade's extruder - they don't have enough torque. These look better.

3.) If you want a J-head, buy one from the man who came up with them. Bryan at hotends.com is the inventor. His prices are good, and the quality is first rate, as opposed to some of the knock-off J-heads which seem to fail at a unreasonable rate.

4.) That RAMPS kit doesn't come with the Arduino MEGA. Have you looked at reprapdiscount on ebay? I've never bought from them, but I've heard good things.

The rest seems fine.

But the big problem you face is that you're going to waste money in shipping costs. If I was you I'd do a cost sheet that includes shipping and compare that to a kit that sources most of the same parts. Matter of fact, find a i2 kit and try to beat that price through self-sourcing. Check makerfarm to get an idea.

Whatever you do, don't buy something until you're 100% sure that's what you REALLY want.

And don't hesitate to ask questions, no matter how trivial.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

This kit I threw together was in comparison of the i2, and I made sure to only add parts that had free shipping (however there were two parts that I could not find with free shipping) The shipping ended up totaling 26 dollars, or something close to that.

1) I just messaged the guy on eBay asking what kind of material his parts are made out of.

2) After I posted this thread I found these stepper motors:
[www.linengineering.com]

I realize that they may be a bit out of my price range, but for the boost in performance I would rather save up the money and purchase these over the ones I posted earlier.

3) I didn't know about hotends, but I just looked into them and the extra 10 dollars is well worth getting the original and not a knock-off. Do you know if the .2mm nozzle will work on the J-Head?

4) And I am now watching this and an auction of the same item on eBay
[www.ebay.com]

Thank you for the advice, I would have been kicking myself if I had bought all of these parts without posting here first.

Those lin engineering steppers are NEMA23's, oversize for the Prusa i2. Take a look for NEMA 17's as they will be compatible with your i2. Something like these are much more appropriate. Remember, your stepper drivers won't drive too much of a load, 1.5A steppers is a safe value for the A4988 based stepper drivers.

Personally, I wouldn't try to get a 0.2mm nozzle. If you want to start off with a fine nozzle go with a 0.35, as anything finer will be very difficult to print with (it may not even work as the extruder might not have enough torque to push the filament through that small of a hole) Do yourself a favor and start with a 0.35.

That ultimate kit looks pretty good. You should ask around for opinions, maybe in the RAMPS or electronics forums.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

Ok, so I'll stick to 17's. and not using the .2mm saves me 10.99. And I'll go post in the electronics forum right now. Thanks again.

I echo akhlut's recommendation regarding the size of the nozzle. When I started out I went with a .25 mm nozzle because I thought it would give me better precision. I guess it could be more precise, but it's hard to get there until you know what you are doing. I was never able to get good results with 0.25, so I eventually swapped it out for a 0.5 and I've been happy with the results. Now that I have things working well and have some experience recognizing what adjustments need to be made, I am considering upgrading, but only to 0.35.

For electronics, you might look at 3d gadgets on ebay. I got their complete kit which fo around $200 with shipping gives you what appears to be a very complete setup including a mega, ramps 1.4, pololus (clones) lcd, and 2 options for sd card, as well as your pulleys, thermistors, 2 sets of end stops and heat bed. You also get most of the wiring you are going to need. I bought this to build my first origional design, to cut out some of the guess work. When you start building a printer from scratch, there are going to be some details that you may not realise you need till it's time to install them (fasteners?) so by eliminating variables where ever you can, you save time and money in the end.