Building RepRap from Dimension BST Printed Parts

Edit: You can now follow my progress at: http://trevorio.tumblr.com/

Hello,

I'm a student in Mechatronics at South Central College in Minnesota. I've been interested in rapid prototyping for a while now.
I've build a fab@home printer, but I wasn't impressed with the print quality, nor the dead community. I came upon the RepRap project
and instantly fell in love. However I had no (affordable) way of sourcing rp parts and I put the RepRap project on the backburner
until I could come up with $900+ for a makerbot + materials. That is, until I made a little discovery in the machine shop at my school:



The poor guy was all alone in a corner not being used by anybody. The dimension bst printer was supposed to be used by
the students in the drafting class, but nobody was taking the class. I knew the instructor of the class and told him about the RepRap
project. I asked if I could use the printer. He basically told me that no one ever uses the machine and that I could go crazy with it.

Machine specs here
Parts are being printed from white ABS. I've printed off 3 of 5 pallets of parts, and I'll be picking up a 4th in about an hour.
The parts are of impressive quality in my opinion. I still have to keep telling myself that it's not magic when I go pick up a set of parts.




I've taken some photos and video, I'll start up a blog to document the process Either later today or tomorrow morning.
I'll host videos of the printing, and build progress. I'm almost done with my set, and since it took about 4~5 days to do I'm
considering printing a second set to sell/trade so that I can get the mechanical/electronic parts to complete a RepRap Mendel.


If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2010 11:53AM by Trevor.

Here are some videos hosted on youtube. Sorry about the poor quality, I used my phone camera. That also explains the shaky video.

Beginning to print

About 2 Hours in

Pulling out a finished tray

Looks like you don't have the latest files. I think is an old version of the belt splitter.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like you don't have the latest files. I
> think is an old version of the belt splitter.




I downloaded the solid models in February. Should I be concerned? What are the major changes? They shouldn't prevent me from building a functioning mendel right?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2010 04:06PM by Trevor.

Poor quality photos, I apologize. I can't find my digital camera so I'm using my cellphone for now.

These are the parts I've completed so far:

Nice looking parts. I'm curious; did the Dimension scorch a couple pieces, or did they get dirty afterward?

Todd

tbfleming Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nice looking parts. I'm curious; did the Dimension
> scorch a couple pieces, or did they get dirty
> afterward?
>
> Todd


I think the machine scorched them; I'm not sure how. The deposition head cleans itself off after it prints a few layers. I think some plastic got stuck on the nozzle, burned a bit, and then got deposited/stuck into a layer on that part. Structurally they appear to be fine. It's only cosmetic as far as I can tell.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2010 04:07PM by Trevor.

Beautiful! I was almost tempted to ask why you even need a RepRap, but then I remembered how high the cost of plastic is for a commercial printer.

How long does the Dimension take to print that full set of parts? I wonder how its speed compares with a well-tuned Mendel.

jbayless Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Beautiful! I was almost tempted to ask why you
> even need a RepRap, but then I remembered how high
> the cost of plastic is for a commercial printer.
>
>
> How long does the Dimension take to print that
> full set of parts? I wonder how its speed compares
> with a well-tuned Mendel.

The pallets on average take about 16 hours to print I'm doing 5, so total print time is 80 hours. They could print faster if I used a lower print resolution. I'm printing at the highest resolution which is .254mm layers. Also keep in mind that I'm not really optimizing for space when I place the parts on the tray. I'm mostly just going in order. I'm sure I could get the time down significantly if I was going for speed.


The reason I'm building my own printer is because I do lots of projects, and it'd be very convenient to have a RepRap machine for my own home. I'm a geek so diy projects like this are something I really enjoy doing. Also, this is the schools machine, so I can only use it during the school year. Cartridges cost $250 for 992cc of plastic. That's quite a bit of money in my opinion. One full set of Mendel parts uses up a whole cartridge. It wouldn't be financially responsible to use this machine unless I was making some serious revenue on selling rapid prototyped parts.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2010 04:09PM by Trevor.