reprap first print! - video

Reprap first print!

After four months of soldering and mucking about with screws and metal things I finally have a working 3D printer.

This was built using Makerbot electronics and aluminium versions of the printed parts. I will publish the drawings of the machined parts as soon as I have 1) tidied them up, 2) fixed the mistakes I put on them and 3) confirmed the design actually works. I made a few changes from the designs released in November in order to make them machine-able, but for the most part they are true to the original designs and taken from the STEP files or the STL files converted back into CAD files.

I've deliberately mounted the electronics in an open fashion on standoffs on an aluminium base plate to facilitate testing as I plan to improve and refine the design. I'd like to improve the electronics, PCB design and location of boards with an eye towards EMC and proper shielding, but for moment they are open to allow scope and multimeter access. I hope to tidy up all the cables into tidy looms and things a bit once I'm happier with the performance and reliability. I had an opto-interrupter board fail on me which resulted in a couple of crashes so I've temporarily replaced them with some very cheap push buttons. Probably a short circuit on the veroboard versions I built up, that'll teach me for being too cheap to pay $1 for a decent PCB.



I am reasonably happy with these prints as a first attempt. I think I really need to tweak the settings and the operation of the extruder to get things working better. (The part designs are from Thingiverse parametric spur gears, Thingiverse parametric Lego block)

I'm quite glad to notice the latest version of host software is functioning on OS X, it saves me having to boot up windows every time I want to print. I say functioning and not working as it doesn't quite fit all the controls on the screen nicely and does odd things every now and then. But it is better than it was a couple of months ago and so it is looking good for the future.

Sadly I'm off home to NZ for a few weeks so wont get a decent chance to to get it all going properly till the end of the month. On the other hand the software may have moved forward another step by then as well and I might even take the time to read the instructions.