I'm a broke teen and I want a 3D printer. I can rip apart an HP printer with a broken motherboard, and it has 3 stepper motors. (It has a scanner, that's the 3rd ones purpose) I can also use an old PC PSU, and a bunch of old floppy drives with stepper motors if need be.
Just how cheap could I build a printer with this? I want the bare minimum of things, although I'd like to have a Bowden extruder because its easier to mount I think.
If I could do a sub-$75 printer that would be AMAZING, but I could go up to $200 if that's essential. I'd really like to get into printing but want to do it for as little $$$ as possible.
So I found out apparently I can use a Teensy 3.0 instead of an Arduino Mega, but I'm unsure what board I need in addition to that. Can the Teensy control steppers by itself? Do I still need the RAMPS board? (I was planning on using the TeaCup firmware unless anyone has a better suggestion)
75$ is impossible, and there are many reasons why this wouldn't work well.
The filament alone is 25$ for a 1kg spool.
3 steppers doesn't cover the bare minimum which is 4 (XYZ + Extruder), whereas most common RepRap designs use 5 (two for Z).
The motors they use in inkjet printers and floppies are far too weak to be driving a 3D printer. You may be lucky and find NEMA14 size ones in your HP printer but even then there's only enough torque to drive something small like a Huxley. They would also get very hot since you'd be pushing them to their limits.
You can't drive a stepper motor directly with an arduino or a teensy, you need stepper drivers for that. Most commonly it's a Pololu board with an Allegro A4988 chip. That's what RAMPS stands for: Reprap Arduino Mega Pololu Shield. There are no board designs for the Teensy so you'll have to really know what you're doing and do it on a breadboard. Totally not worth the effort if you can spend the extra 30$ on a cheap Sanguinololu with everything in it.
Unless you have machining skills and a shop you'll have to buy a hotend too. That's 57$ for a proper quality J-Head. There are cheap chinese clones but this is the one part you really don't want to skimp on. Fire hazard aside, they are prone to frequent jams and clogs.
There are cheap printer kits available which range from 250$ to 800$ but most of them have very questionable quality. Still, if that doesn't deter you, have a look around eBay.
Word of advice about the Tiko: there is an influx of 3d printer kickstarters in the recent years. Many companies are trying to jump on the craze and don't always deliver on their promises, so i'd approach it with some amount of skepticism. They're already embellishing things by saying that "Delta printers are more precise" on their KS page. Cheaper to manufacture yes, but not necessarily more precise.
How large of a print area are you trying to go for? I've seen really tiny 3d printers made from old CD drives, but that would only give you a print area of like 5 or 6 inches at most. You might be able to build one of these for close to your $75 budget.
I had a similar idea a few years ago about building an inexpensive CNC machine using motors salvaged from commercial printers. In the end I built a 3d printer (a RepRap Morgan to be exact), but did not use any of the salvaged motors I had.
The frame of the printer only cost me about $40 (Gotta love plywood and PVC), but the electronics ended up costing another $250 or so. (4 motors, 4 stepper drivers, RAMPS board, Arduino Mega, J-head hotend, heated bed, power supply). Took me a good 6 months or so to save money, source the parts, and get everything built. The experience was priceless and a ton of fun.
Yeah I was a little worried about the Tiko, especially since there are no actual reviews of it yet...
What sort of thing is cheapest to control a printer? I knew about using an Arduino Mega, but that's $40 plus $20 for the RAMPS board. Is there some sort of allinone solution? Or a cheaper solution even if it's not all in one?
I had heard you could use a brass bolt with a hole drilled through it as a head, with nichrome wire as a heater and a thermistor to regulate it. If this is true then I can manage, I can either do it myself or get a friend who has a shop to do it.
I don't need anything bigger than a 6 inch cube print area. I could go as little as a 4 inch cube.
How would you do it with a CD drive? I took apart a floppy drive the other day, and I could build a REALLY tiny one with the stepper motors in there, but that would be like a 2in print area...so that wouldn't really be worth what I'd pay for the electronics.
For the frame, I was going to sort of copy the article here:
I have an old PC case I don't care about that I can take the sides off of and then I'll pretty much have a big steel hollow cube. I can use the steel rails from the HP printer, and since it's a scanner and printer I think it has 3 rails in it, certainly at least 2. I can probably also hijack some of the gears, maybe use those for the extruder.
For the hot end I was looking at the Lite6 from E3D. If there's a better option, let me know, I just found that one and it was reasonably priced.
Most likely that gentleman had access to some old printer parts when they used to put REAL stepper motors in them. (After watching the vid, it looks like he still had to purchase a "modern" stepper motor for the extruder, and a majority of the e-waste went into the frame. It also looks like he had already built a RepRap Mendel or Huxley prior to building his ewaste printer, so he already had full working knowledge of how rapid prototyping machines typically operate. Very helpful when trying to find alternative solutions.)
I was referring to something more like this:
or this:
E3D has been KILLING it in the hotend space recently, so that's a good choice to go with. I was actually looking into one of those to replace my J-head.
As far as electronics go, while I hesitate to recommend this, there are always knock off Megas that can be had for $20 or so. Supporting Arduino is awesome, but sometimes you have go with what fits your budget.
Hope some of this has been helpful. I love talking shop about printer builds.
Congrats BTW on deciding to learn about 3d printers by building one!!!!!!!!!!! No better way than that.
40$ is only if you go with an original Arduino Mega, there are tons of chinese clones that go as low as 12$ and should do the business. The part that deals with high current for the bed and extruder is more important here (the RAMPS board). There are all-in-one solutions designed specifically for repraps such as Sanguinololu, Printrboard, Melzi, Rumba... Check the wiki, there are plenty. I personally use a Melzi, but that's mostly because there is someone who makes them here, locally.
Nichrome is very oldschool, most hotends nowadays use heater cartridges. The advantage is that they're very compact and you don't need to use messy JB weld or other types of temperature resistant concoctions to fix it in place.
The actual frame of the printer isn't expensive at all, so it's no surprise that man could make one from e-waste. Even the Ultimaker uses either plywood or lasercut acrylic sheets (plexiglas). The Prusa i3 and Mendel90 can be made out of MDF. What adds up the bulk of the cost for a 3D printer are the motors, electronics and hotend. It doesn't matter how big or small it is, or whether it's made out of titanium or particleboard. My suggestion is to just save up for a kit. I think this video explains it pretty well:
In the best scenario, you'd need at least control board of sorts, a printhead, and another stepper.
The lowest cost printhead I know of is the E3D Lite6, ~$35 iirc. Another stepper is about $8. Filament is around $30 a kilo. We're at $73 already, and we don't even have something like an arduino mega + RAMPS.
So I have been looking at the QU-BD OneUp/TwoUp, and I'm intrigued...I think I would replace the hot end with the E3D Lite6 ASAP, and maybe get some of the Bowden extruder designs from ThingiVerse to make the carriage a little more efficient...
Has anyone had experience with these? Particularly the OneUp? I know the gantry sags, I was going to use the pulley mod to fix that, and there's the thing with the Z axis screw wiggling, but are there any other really bad issues? These all seem pretty fixable, and for $200 I am seriously considering...
This is the first time i hear of these so i can't tell you much about them. But at 200$ it seems too good to be true...
Putting a bowden extruder in there is a bit like painting racing stripes on an old pickup truck. Yes you might get faster print speeds, but speed should be the least of your problems. Biggest issue i can see at a glance is the "one leadscrew" design that makes it easy for the X axis to wobble around. It also doesn't offer much room for a fix either, since you'll need to put a 5th motor and second leadscrew where the Y axis motor is. You can't easily add a heated bed either because of the weird build size and 100W power supply. If your idea is to go this cheap for a printer you don't really have much of a choice.
Yeah, apparently QU-BD needs to get their crap together, they've been having issues getting the printer kits delivered in good condition...so I don't think (based on the sheer amount of complaints) that I'll be doing business with them anytime real soon...
QU-BD as a company is not great. The One Up and Two Up are also not amazing. I researched them when I was looking for a budget 3D printer, and people kept getting broken parts or no parts at all. OneUp and TwoUp printers kept falling apart since it's just MDF press-fit together. The acrylic pieces cracked. The list goes on and on.
If you're a bit adventurous, you can try to source together a Smartrap. Shouldn't be too expensive when compared to other 3D printers on the market, but there is a bit of a learning curve with RepRap. You can get parts printed off something like 3D Hubs.
I think I'm gonna try the e waste approach, using a Lite6 hot end and a Melzi board to control it. Im wondering though...is this sort or thing what I need for a power supply for a Melzi based printer?
And is there a cheaper hot end and extruder that I can buy? I want to use a Bowden extruder, but if y'all think a direct drive one will work better I'm okay with that.
Why do you insist on a Bowden extruder? Every approach has its own set of disadvantages, for example you'll have a hard time dialling in the filament retraction just right. Also printing with flexible filament (like ninjaflex) is harder with a bowden since it tries to "curl up" inside the tube. Direct-drive extruders are compact, but have the least torque of all other designs. An exception are the ones that come with a geared stepper motor like this, but they are more expensive too (see bulldog XL).
I'd just get the standard "Greg's Wade-Reloaded" type. It's cheap, reliable, and you can find all non-printed parts in your local hardware store. You can even make the hobbed bolt yourself if you want to save a buck. It's included in most plastic part kits on eBay, like this one for a Prusa i3. Btw, Replikeo offer a Prusa i3 kit for 350$ if you're interested.
PSU's are all made in China and it's hard to tell a dud without opening it. Be warned that Geetech are a "bottom of the barrel" supplier and their Melzi's are crap. For a list of issues check this page.