I needed a 3D printer to carry along, After assembling a few 3D printers based on opensource designs. I started drawing and experimenting with various designs of my own, finally I decided to make a folding!! 3d printer that fits a cabin size suitcase. In Part1 I will show you how to buld the mechanical parts, Parts 2 will cover the electronics. Part 3 will show how to use the software’s. Enjoy!!
The Drawing…
Folded & packed in a small suitcase.
Bill of materials (BOM)
To build the 3d printer I have provided a list of the basic hardwares, materials & electronics needed. The list is an overview of what is needed.
How to get the printed parts
Download the 3D stl files from reprap wiki here.
How to get the other parts
Talk to people around you who already own a 3D printer (if the person has no clue what reprap means… Run!! 🙂 )
Alternatively you can request for all parts and components from me (complete diy kit). You will receive a box of everything every single parts which has been cut to size and all electronics tested. On marktplaats nl search “teebot”
Know your parts
Direct drive Extruder (Teestruder)
Electronics Ramps + Arduino + Stepper Driver
The build
Assembling the printer is pretty straight forward 🙂 I will spare you the trouble of reading and just load photos…
Easy right 🙂 assuming all went fine you should have a machine looking like this…
At this point the print bed (Y axis), extruder (X axis) and Z axis should all be movable with you hands and no play should be observed along it’s movement.
Electronics .. fire up the soldering iron!!
Big congrats if you made it this far, at this point it will be nice to clear up your work space, shed, garage, work table and get rid of all left over materials,
this is where the fun begins (or never begins!!) …
If you’ve never played/work with an arduino board using stepper motors. Before connecting them to the printer I advice you test the whole components first, in the reprap world there are a lots of variations to almost everything!! your approach might be different, but here is how I normally do the wiring/electronics.
In part 2 I will cover the steps mentioned above. Enjoy some photos of some of the printer at work 🙂 .