My followers on Twitter will be aware that for the past few weeks I’ve been working with a couple other guys on building a 3D printer, namely a RepRap Longboat Prusa. I’ve been interested in them for a long time, mostly because they tickle my sci-fi nerd side just right, but apart from endlessly fantasizing about them I hadn’t really pursued them further. One of my long time gamer friends asked me late last year if I’d be interested in going halves for a kit. After I mentioned the idea to another friend he jumped on board as well and the 3 of us waited eagerly for the kit to arrive.
In total we’ve spent about 48 man hours total over 3 days putting it together, getting the wiring done and then troubleshooting the software and interfaces. It’s been an eye opening experience, one that challenged my electronics knowledge like it hasn’t been in quite a few years, and the result is what you see below:
We decided not to attempt to print anything since at this point it was getting close to midnight and we didn’t want to keep the Make Hack Void space open any longer than we already had. But from seeing it do the dry run it appeared to be functioning correctly (it’s printing a small cup in the video) albeit a little stiff at some points. We think that’s due to 2 things, the first being that the large gear on the extruder platform is warped slightly and sometimes hits the mounting hardware near it. Secondly we were running the steppers at a low voltage to begin with so with a little more juice in them we’ll probably see them become more responsive. We’ve still yet to print anything with it but the next time we get together you can guarantee that will be pretty much all we’ll do after we’ve spent so long on getting it running.
What this project opened up my eyes to was that although there’s a torrent of information available there’s no simple guide to go from beginning to end. Primarily this is because the entire movement is completely open source and the multitude of iterations available means there’s near endless numbers of variations for you to choose from. Granted this is probably what a lot of the community revels in but it would be nice if there was some clear direction in going from kit to print, rather than the somewhat organized wiki that has all the information but not all in a clear and concise manner.
The software for driving the machines is no better. We started off using the recommended host software which is a Java app that for the most part seems to run well. At the moment though it appears to be bugged and is completely unable to interface with RepRap printers, something we only discovered after a couple hours of testing. RepSnapper on the other hand worked brilliantly the first time around and was the software used to initiate the dry run in the video above. You’ll be hard pressed to find any mention of that particular software in the documentation wiki however which is really frustrating, especially when the recommended software doesn’t work as advertised.
I guess what I’m getting at here is that whilst there’s a great community surrounding the whole RepRap movement there’s still a ways for it to go. Building your own RepRap from scratch, even from a kit, is not for the technically challenged and will require you to have above entry level knowledge of software, electronics and Google-fu. I won’t deny that overcoming all the challenges was part of the fun but there were many road blocks that could have been avoided with better documentation with overarching direction.
All that being said however it’s still incredible that we were able to do this when not too long along the idea of 3D printing was little more than a pipe dream. Hopefully as time goes on the RepRap wiki will mature and the process will be a little more pain free for other users ,something I’m going to contribute to with our build video (coming soon!).
Have you had a look at some of the more commercial options like the Makerbot? They seem reasonably viable to those with some tech interest. Most people won’t make their own printers, just as they don’t build their own pc’s (or do more than change the odd part).
I was drooling over the more recent MakerBot (the one with dual extruders, 2 colours! OMG!) but they’re incredibly expensive, circa $1800 or so. That being said their solutions are probably a whole host more elegant than what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I haven’t gotten past the ogling stage though 😉
Yeah I can see building your own as something of a hobby (just like you said) but still even the comparison between PCs and 3D printers is disingenuous at the moment as whilst there’s some standards it’s still a long way from the level of interoperability we see in the PC market. It’s quite similar to the earlier days of the PC market, where home grown solutions were a lot cheaper but required a bit of work on the part of the consumer. I have no doubt they’ll get there eventually.
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