I was hanging out in the o’l man cave the other day and noticed my 3D printer sitting on my X-Carve. I thought to myself “My 3D printer needs to look like my X-Carve”
So… I started ordering parts… and they are slowly showing up!
You are going to get me in trouble since i didn’t add everything up and told my wife “it will just be a few hundred”.
… but… $500 seems about right.
$140 for the Aluminum w/shipping (i ordered Black which is more $$)
$80 for a genuine E3D v6 hotend.
$50 for the motors.
$40 for the nuts/bolts (keep an eye out for coupons from Mr. Metric)
$40 for heatbed + Aluminum build plate.
$25 for Linear Rails
$20 for the Arduino w/Ramps 1.4 board
$20 for PSU
$100 for bits-and-bobs (gears, GT2 belts, bearings, end stops, wires)
I didn’t order anything from China like the ‘Bill of Materials’ recommends. You could definitely get that price lower by ordering some of the parts from China but i don’t like to wait. You could also save a large chunk of $$ by going with a lower cost hotend to start with.
Wow! Thanks! I could have my own little MakerSpace… With a J-Tech laser added. Seriously…
On a side note, and not to hijack the thread, but ever since I started seriously researching building my own CNC machine, I’ve always been a little frustrated that you need a CNC machine to build a CNC machine, and forum members have 3D printed a lot of parts for their XC’s. While looking at the BOM, it appears that you need to 3D print a lot of the bits for your 3D printer. Sigh…
Then we’re just one step away from machines replicating themselves…
Actually… my plan is to attach a J-Tech laser to the new 3D printer. My X-Carve is covered in sawdust all the time and I’d prefer not to burn down my house
IMHO the best way to get into 3D printing is to buy a simple ~$200 Prusa i3 kit from eBay. If you decide its something you want to keep messing with then you can always upgrade (aka… print your own parts for a better printer).
Both the Prusa and my new printer fall under the ‘RepRap’ umbrella… And the first line on the RepRap website says: RepRap is humanity’s first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine.
FYI: here is a CNC you can build with a 3D printer: http://www.vicious1.com/specifications/ - been planning to making/hacking one of these for a large ‘cheap’ laser cutter.
I have also been tinkering with the thought of building a 3D printer from CNC-made parts. Might be fun (read time consuming) project to modify the C/D-bot to be made from CNC parts. The real question is what to call it?
@BrianM - now that you have had the machine for a while, what do you think? I am currently building the D-Bot as well. I am going with a larger machine with a 12 x 24 (300 x 600) buildplate.
I’ve upgraded a few things over time (switched to a Titan direct drive extruder, auto bed leveling, improved the frame… etc) but the basic design (and corexy system) hardly needs any maintenance.
Over the past few months i’ve printed 2 spools (~3lb’s) of copperfill (copper/metal filament). My other printers struggle with copperfill.
I’ve converted a few of those pieces into SVG format that can be cut out of aluminum on the X-Carve. Let me know if you want them and i’ll post the files/projects.
If you are willing to post them I may use them, not initially but after I get this thing built. I just cut all of the extrusion to size, waiting on bearings to arrive now.
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