I bought a 3D printer, and I’ll write more about it later, but this is just my first thoughts on its construction -
- SPECIFICS – I bought a prusa mendel kit from a reputable dealer, with a heated build plate and other accessories. Prebuilt arduino shield, etc…
The FRAME – Easily constructed. Built the frame and mounted most of the motors in 12 hrs.
The Plastruder/heating element – far more difficult than I thought it would be, but doable. Good thing I had an electrician handy.
The Heated Build Platform PCB – here, my electrician messed up a bit, soddering power from the ATX computer PSU directly to it, instead of from the controller. I fixed this later.
The Electronics – I honestly have NO IDEA why they built this thing like this. They wanted me to strip the perfectly good molex connectors off of cabling, and replace them. Instead, I’m mounting my electronics higher, and Voila! all my cables reach.
PROBLEMS -
The HEATED PCB build platform is too tall – Right now, unless I can solve the issue, I’m looking at about 4 inches of clearance, if that. that’s not a lot of build space, when I bought this model for the supposed 5 inches of avalable build. Still working on this, as it may just be that I don’t have my extruder barrel in tight enough.
POWER – I’m not sure if I should be running 2x 5v or 1 12v and 1 5v power line into those connectors. I’ll have to figure this out later.
Cable Management – I seriously need to print out a cord box for the ATX cables.
Tiny Little Fan – where do you go? I don’t have a connector for you?
Missing Molex cable-spike – I don’t know the actual term for this, but I’m missing a cable-end-spike (male) that fits into a molex connector for the extruder/thermristor and the heated PCB/thermristor. I’m working on those, though.
Calibration – my apartment was built by men who do not understand the terms Level, Clay, to-code, or Flood-plain. Getting this thing to print straight is going to be more difficult than getting George Takei to father a child.
I hope to finish the electronics monday night, and have it calibrated and printing by friday. We’ll see how this goes.