3D printer: Projects never die, they just hibernate

This does not count as an ODOTS post. Though ODOTS posts will just have heralded it and will follow on from it.

The 3d printer LIVES

One of the things that became very clear at the end of University was that I was unlikely to gain access to as good computer aided manufacture devices for a very long time. Naturally this resulted in the Engineer's equivalent of the process of grief: procrastination, fear for future projects, rapid acquaintance gathering in later university intakes, planning for losing capability and finally  - coming up with a hacky workaround.

I am pleased to reveal that the hacky workaround in question rates very low on the hack-index. Actually it rates embarrassingly low. The solution of course was to plan to build my own 3D printer, CNC router e.t.c. - to this point only the 3d printer has had any work done with it, mostly as many of its components were made using the machines at University in my final few months.

The justification for this was that I was only using scrap wood (in the laser cutter) and a minimal amount of filament on 3d printers that were not being used (because everyone was studying for exams...). The result was stuff of legend. I had chosen the Smartrapcore design because I liked the idea of the RepRap Core-xy and the design ends up looking a lot like the Ultimakers from Uni. The smart rap core jscad produces a STL of the expected completed printer, this made making the frame design particularly straightforward.

The blue is the STL - so far everything has fitted perfectly on the frame side.

The big stumbling block was naturally gathering components and the cost of doing so. This is my excuse for the 6-12 month delay in actually starting construction from when I first started the 3d printer concept with a bunch other students.

A view of the core-xy carriages 

Some filing work has been needed to get the timing belts working - but the entire structure is now together, and all carriages are moving smoothly. The only thing left to do is wire it up, load up firmware, check everything is working, calibrate the movement, calibrate hot-end temperature and filament flow-rate ... just most of the build process really!