3D Printer

Recently a friend of mine sent me a number of parts he had laying around to get me started on building a 3D printer. The parts he sent, plus some time, and a few parts I could buy would combine into a machine for making objects out of rolls of plastic.

Once his shipment arrived, it was time for me to construct the frame, which everything else would attach to. I ended up building the frame from some finish plywood I picked up at the local Home Depot. After which came the measuring and cutting. Of course, I had my puppy helper to distract me.

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After the panels were cut, I grabbed the iPad for directions, and my finish nail gun to tack the whole thing together.

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And with the magic of the finish nail gun, nearly instantaneously a frame appeared before my eyes.

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After the frame was built, it was time to start attaching parts to it. First to come was the X axis and carriage, and the Z axis that supports it.

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Next came the Y axis which has the bed, and moves back and forth underneath the X axis.

IMG_0913Then, through the magic of not taking pictures, all the electronics get installed and the printer is complete!

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Then it came down to fiddling all the settings, and tuning things here and there, and calibration, and repeating everything, and etc, etc, until finally you get something printed!

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Hey! Look at that! It’s a box! Also, for the heck of it, I put my magnifier on the box. Oooooh 60X magnification!

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Anyway, after all the initial calibration is done, you can start doing fancy parts, like this freaking awesome gear bearing I printed!

Or this awesome vase-like-object, which maybe I’ll use to hold pens or something!

IMG_1065Or, practical things like a case for the Random Number Generator USB stick I talked about a few posts back!

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Anyway, it’s been very interesting building the printer and tuning it up to make decent prints, and I think it will find a lot of use as it dovetails in with my other electronics and hobby projects.

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