First Build Questions

Hi all! I am researching and very slowly getting ready to a plan of attack together to build a 3D Printer, probably the Prusa i3...a kit is just way out of my price range (I'm a teacher), so I was thinking about putting it together in stages...getting the frame done and then moving onto to the next steps. I see on Ebay and Amazon smaller kits for different build stages and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with those? I've been studying all of the Prusa manuals on the RepRapWiki and my hope is to put a functional one together to show my students and then work with them to build their own.

One thing I know for sure, I want to include an SD card so I don't have to leave my laptop attached or worry about it shutting off mid-print.


Thanks!
~N

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2013 08:56AM by BlaiddDrwg.

The price of a full printer kit is a very good way to judge what a printer will cost you. There are a number of them out there at a range of prices depending on exactly what you get. If you plan is based on "I can buy all this cheaper in bits and pieces" - that's likley not a good plan. If it's based on "I already have a big CNC machine and a free inventory of all the needed raw matterials" - that's a pretty good plan. It's not at all easy to match parts from different sources up. In many cases cheap parts are cheap because they don't work. eBay is a great place to find this and that. Roughly 95% of what you find is stuff you would not want to use.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2013 12:15PM by uncle_bob.

You need basically the same number of parts, many vary widely in quality, some... less so. Bearings for example can be had from a variety of sources, at a variety of prices. Most appear to be from the same origin however. Motors on the other hand, come in all sorts of power capabilities and two typical degrees of accuracy. (1.8 deg and .9 deg) Even the more expensive ones add only modestly to the overall cost of the printer. Hotends are critical. Buying a hotend from a reputable vendor will cost more, but it is worth the difference. Things like frame components and printed parts can be also had from a wide variety of sources, and at different costs. The biggest money saver is to decide exactly what you want (how will you use your printer?) and make a complete list of items and prices. Don't forget about fasteners! You can get pretty decent kits of electronics on eBAY at reasonable cost. As for the machine shop, I have one (manual - or I'd be done by now) My biggest cost differential is the frame. It is somewhat higher than a kit of retail frame, but then it is a bit bigger... There are some extremely inexpensive printers on the market, but if you do your research carefully and buy correctly, you can build a decent quality printer, one which you can continue to refine at your convenience at the price of a low end pure reprap design kit.

If you are just wanting to pickup something to play with, then why not get something much simpler and cheaper? You can pickup a Printrbot for dirt cheap. I believe they have an optional LCD kit too.
It may not be very big, but if you are just wanting to tinker, then this is a good option.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2013 03:43PM by MrBaz.

If you want to gamble a bit, there are i3 kits for under $400. If you want to be a bit more conservative, they are up around $600 or so. I am doing one from bits and pieces. I'd guess it will cost me $800 or so once I'm done with it. That's doing it after I've got a working printer and know what to look for ....

Under $400? I haven't seen that kind of pricing anywhere.

Right now I keep going back and forth between the i2 and i3, I'm just not sure which to go with.

There are outfits in third world countries that will sell you an i3 kit for $400 or less....I would not recommend buying from them, but they are out there.

I just bought a MendelMax kit from Blomker Industries in Malaysia, and I had some issues with it. I got this kit in particular because it has a very rigid frame, and I figured that I would be upgradeing parts of it as I went. I figure I got 4 good prints out of the first head, it was a piece of junk. I replaced it with a J-head, I did a poor job securing the thermistor in place and melted it. I put in a second J-head and it has been great. I also had a hell of a time working with the circuit breakers in the RAMPS 1.4 board, and ended up replaceing them with car fuses. If you assume that in ordering direct from Mendel I wouldn't have had these headaches, I wouldn't have spent extra money on heads, and I would have gotten to happy prints much sooner, was it worth the $700 I saved? I guess so. Depends on how you value the exchange rate of money to time!

Have you looked at Rep-strapping? Start by making a 3d printer with whatever you can, purchase the parts for the final printer and build them around your improvised frame. Use this to print your printed parts of the final printer, when they are done disassemble the rep-strap and use the parts in your new, stronger frame. There are some great pics out there of Lego rep-straps that look really cool. This is definately for the person who has lots of time for the project, but not much $$ to do it.
Good Luck!

Since most of the reliable kit sources buy their parts in bulk and get discounts it is very hard to
source individual parts cheaper (just the individual shipping adds up).

You mention you are a teacher. Are you building this to use in the class room? If so
there a lots of small grants that can be found to help with the cost.

Buy from a US based vendor. While the UK and Europe vendors are reliable to my knowledge
shipping and time lag for support is an issue. I would stay away from any far east
vendors - I just have not heard good things.

You don't mention a budget?