3D Printer Prusa i3

I chose the Prusa i3 (http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3) as the 3D printer I wanted to build due to it’s rigidity and amount of information online related to it. At the time of making this, 3D printing was starting to get popular but was not NEARLY as popular as it is as you read this. Kits were not as available, amazon did not sell 3D printers, so I decided to make my own from plans and forum posts found online.

24V power supply, 5 steppers, threaded and smooth rods, waterjet aluminum frame arrived.

Printed parts from someone elses printer on ebay to make my printer arrived!

Time to get started…

Start of the frame that will hold the Y axis/table primarily

Added the rest of the frame, once tightened down, this is very solid and very rigid. I am glad I chose aluminum!

Y axis, linear bearings installed and belt clamp installed. The belt clamp will attach to the belt that is driven by the stepper motor for this axis.

Starting to come together

Time to add the X axis and Z axis linear rails and bearings.

Hotend, extruder get mounted to the x carriage. Z threaded rod installed and X belt installed. Heated bed PCB and limit switches for homing also installed.

PCB after assembly, bought unassembled to save 30$. SMT microcontroller came on the empty pcb.

The bootloader was not on the chip so I had to reflash the chip using another Arduino as a programmer.

Everything wired up, blue painters tape on the glass on the heated bed to prevent the parts from sticking.

First print is a 20mm x 20mm x 10mm square so that I can verify calibration.

I had to change a lot of parameters in the firmware I am using to interpret the GCode. The firmware I am using is Marlin (https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin)

Printing a new herringbone gear for my extruder because the one I have isn’t very clean.

Minion…because…minion.

I then upgraded a bit and printed a spool holder to hold the filament.

Printed a few bottle openers for friends.