First build Prusa I3 parts and advice needed

Hey guys i am new here and i am about to start ordering the parts needed to build a Prusa I3 and was hoping someone here could print some parts for me i will pay for them of course

and if you guys had any tips or advice about the Prusa I3 that would be great from what i have read it seems best to go with the rework version with 10mm rods?

Thanks

(oh and the next project after the Prusa is done will be a filament extruder to keep costs down just need to find a good place to buy PLA and ABS pellets)

I'm about to start printing parts for another member here.
Could print some parts for you too if you like.
Send me a PM if interested

Quote
tomas02
I'm about to start printing parts for another member here.
Could print some parts for you too if you like.
Send me a PM if interested

That would be great i will flick you a pm now also do you think the Prusa I3 is the best machine to make as a first build i am pretty handy neither the electrical or mechanical side worry me
i have spent most of my life messing with electronics and also anything mechanical as well and have a few years working in both fields (well sort of anyway lol electronics was retail) and before that i did a fair bit of work with aluminium building security doors etc or anything that needed to be built)

Thanks

Ok so i have ordered everything apart from my 10mm rods and the printed parts but but i have an offer for the printed parts so all is well cant wait to build this thing but i must say the price went up very fast lol but oh well work will be reimbursing me anyway so that is fine.

oh and i still need to build the frame i am thinking i will use acrylic because i have some already and if i make the frame i can make it a little taller to increase build height a little as i went with a E3D Hot end and from what i have seen they seem to reduce the build height a little

im not sure if this has changed or not but wasnt the e3d better for abs and not so good with PLA?
also if you could post you parts list and sources that would greatly help those like myself who are still sourcing parts.
if you go for acrylic there is a way to do it in 6mm and use the same dimensions and fastner sizes as the single plate. i think it was by using side supports, one of the sites that sell a laser cut kit had pdf plans for it, but i cant seem to find it at the moment

Zerker is right, many users struggle to get good results using all metal hot ends with PLA. It seem to be possible to tweak retraction and heating settings to get it to work but the E3D is better suited to ABS. The problem appears to be that the diameter of the PLA filament swells as it is forced by the extruder towards the hot end (and heat migrates up the PLA in the extruder). The E3D design attempts to solve that by forced air cooling and by limiting the cross sectional area of metal between the hot and cold ends. Extruders that have a PTFE inner sleeve can better tolerate PLA expansion without causing the extruder to stall and skip steps. I have had great success with PLA thru a Budaschnozzle hot end. I have a fan directed to the heatsink between hot and cold ends to limit the heat transfer upwards and I don't leave the extruder heater on for more than a few minutes without printing. Taking these precautions, I now never get extruder blockages during prints. Early on in my commissioning I came across a pearl of wisdom that the printing speed is an important variable for preventing PLA swelling and blocking in the extruder. Printing faster means more rapid flow of PLA thru the extruder - effectively offering more cooling to the inside of the extruder. Most beginners are tempted to start running really slowly and this can create extruder blockages that don't occur if running faster.

Here is a blog post that I found which seems to fairly sum up the E3D for PLA:
http://3dprinterhell.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/e3d-v4-hotend-follow-up.html

On sourcing parts: I started out last year as a newbie compiling a spreadsheet to price a set of parts. I quickly came to the realization that I could save time and money by purchasing a kit of parts from Ebay. I bought a RAMPS 1.4 Starter kit from Gadgets3D for a bit less than their website price via one of their Ebay listings. With super fast delivery (the only shipping option offered) it came in under the $400 NZ limit above which it would have attracted GST and import fees. I clicked buy-now on a Friday and it arrived at my door on Monday morning - from Hong Kong! For the most part it has been an excellent way to start a build. It would be easy to end up spending much more than $400 buying all of the components separately. You could possibly save some money by shopping around and by leaving out the LCD and heatbed but having used both of these I wouldn't go without them unless I really needed to keep the price down. The only failure I have had from this kit of parts was that the heatbed MOSFET stopped working during a 7 hour print job. I researched online and replaced it with a better part number and it hasn't missed a beat since. Stainless threaded rod was ex-Blacks fasteners and I bought a rods and bearings set from Makershop. A 450W ATX power supply from PCU was purchased new and modified as per common online instructions to supply sufficient current for RAMPS feeding Heatbed and extruder. The only 3D printed parts I used in the build was the extruder - purchased from Ebay. I built the rest as a welded steel assembly to give a more robust frame.

Here is my machine in action soon after it was built http://youtu.be/sMtght8I3CM.

Best of luck with build

Neil

Thanks for the advice guys i will try the E3D hot end as i have already ordered it if i dont llike it i will order another one but i think most of my printing will be in abs for a while anyway so we will see how it goes.
i definitely have more then $400 in this so far but i did double up on all the hardware for future builds i will just need electronics and rods

one of the reasons i went with the E3D hot end was so that i could try other materials later

i will look at compiling a list of where i got everything soon

oh and one question do you guys think Wantai Nema 17 Stepper Motor 42BYGHW811 70oz-in 48mm 2.5A are good?

Thanks

Yes, I use Wantai motors

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Waitaki 3D Printer

the stepper drivers have a max load of 2 Amps, you dont really want to go plugging in 2.5 Amp motors, thats why you wire the motors for your z axis in series as well, so that you arent making the one driver do double duty.
if you have a look through this forum you can see quite a number of the motors us Kiwi's have bought and used, I've got these but I havent used me yet, I think Dust said he is using the same ones on his I3, not 100% sure on that though
[www.aliexpress.com]
1.8 amp and 1.8 degree step angle, and more than enough torque for an I3. if you do get these ones you will have to lengthen the wire on them.

another memeber here bought a different model wantai and from memory I think they were cheaper again didnt need extra wire but had closer to the I3's torque specs
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these are waitaki's motors from a previous post of his, they are the wantai ones i was thinking of
[www.aliexpress.com]
also a good read is this thread:
[forums.reprap.org]
Dust lists the ideal motor requirements and suggests where you can go over spec in some places without worry.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2014 06:22AM by Zerker.

Hey Zerker correct me if i am wrong but shouldn't my stepper drivers limit the current to the motors anyway so there is no harm in going for the ones i listed? as they cost the same anyway

the drivers can draw more amps than they can efectivley cool themselves for. in the above thread from my edit, Mike P talks about this and advises fan cooling when drawing over 1amp.

yes there is a trimpot on the stepper driver so you can turn it down and up, so I suppose it's not a big deal, but you wouldnt be getting the higher performance of those motors without drawing more power, so whats the point?

Zerker:

Yes I use rattms on my I3's

And I also don't recommend the 2.5amp steppers on the 2amp drivers.

Hey Zerker thanks that is what i was thinking. there is no real point to using them apart from that i have already ordered them i might be able to cancel them but they are the same price as the smaller ones so why bother i could always use these ones on another printer later on if i need to and use bigger drivers then

oh hey dust so you guys think i would be better to cancel the order and go with smaller motors?

bad habit i guess i always like to go overkill on everything

Sounds like the consensus is that these motors are overkill. I would probably be tempted to run with them and take care not to over-feed them from the drivers. It may be possible to add resistors in series to have hard wired current limiting but this is ugly. If you can change the order - go for it. The only other drawback I can see with higher current motors is the mass of the motors - in particular for the extruder drive. This is not a problem if you are going the Bowden route but having a heavier motor on the X-axis will limit how fast you can push your X-axis. There are a huge range of NEMA 17 motors available and the holding torque pretty much scales with motor length (therefore mass).

Neil

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My Prusa Mendel i2 inspired Repstrap with welded steel frame: [youtu.be]
And my Smartrap derived Briefcase 3D printer: [youtu.be]

Hey i have cancelled the order for those motors so i wil order a new set of motors tonight
also does anyone know a good source to buy M10 threaded rod stainless either 304 or 316 grade?

You will get a much better deal from Anzor or Blacks fasteners than buying from a hardware store. All the better if you are able to buy thru a company that has an account with a fastener supplier.

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My Prusa Mendel i2 inspired Repstrap with welded steel frame: [youtu.be]
And my Smartrap derived Briefcase 3D printer: [youtu.be]

might try Anzor we actually had an account with them at a previous job otherwise Trademe or the local hardware store it is i only need the 10mm gear i have everything else ordered but as soon as you get to 10mm it is not work getting from china unless you buy bulk

oh and my first lot of parts arrived today from Makershop great fast service.

Hey guys another question i was going to build the frame myself but i am now thinking about buying a frame do you have any you would recommend?

the only person I've seen sell frames in NZ was Dust and I think he sold out.
it may be a case of getting one either Laser Cut from acrylic or Melamine. or waterjet cut from aluminiumn localy.
I looked into getting lasercut kits into NZ and the shipping was about the same as the product, in the end I decided to go for Plottr's redesigned box frame, but from the sounds of it you have been buying for the single plate build?

Hi There,

Very new to the forum, just registered. Thinking about building an Prusa I3.
I was wondering if you could give me some direction related to budget, so how much I would end up spending by hunting the parts from good sources as you did?
Or the other option is to buy a kit from the market like the Gadget3D guys...

[gadgets3d.com]

I like their design and documentation exposed bom...and the USD499 looks a reasonable price for the kit....

Would really appreciate your opinion on this.

Cheers,
Tamas

Tamas

I had a very good experience with Gadgets3D starter kit (electronics motors etc - not the whole printer kit you are looking at). I found that they often have some of their kits on ebay for less than their list price - if you are lucky you bid and win them for a bit of a saving. I bought mine that way. Delivery was super prompt (3 days from Hong Kong to my door) and overall quality was good. The hobbed bolt was supplied un-hobbed and when I let them know they immediately sent a finished one plus a starter reel of PLA by way of apology.

I would recommend paying the extra $49 for the LCD screen - very worthwhile. It allows you to print from an SD card without having to hook up a computer. It also allows a lot of manual control and tweaking that helps when you are working out how to best drive the machine.

A word of warning - international purchases in excess of $400NZD including shipping costs can be pinged for customs fees and GST when they arrive in NZ. The kit I bought came in under that but yours will be over the threshold so it may end up more expensive than you expect. Gadgets3D may fudge the customs docs to help you out if you ask nicely.

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My Prusa Mendel i2 inspired Repstrap with welded steel frame: [youtu.be]
And my Smartrap derived Briefcase 3D printer: [youtu.be]

Hi Neil,

Thank you very much for your valuable answer!

Cheers,
Tamas