Mostly Metal 3D Printer - MM3DP

Last crawled date: 4 years, 4 months ago

Simple, inexpensive, low part count, with few 3D printer specific parts. No zip ties, 3D printed parts, flexible extrusion, fragile limit switches, or junk Chinese linear bearings, rods, lead screws, idler pulleys, anti-backlash [sic] components, or power supply.
Update: This has become my "go to" printer due to awesome print quality and it being quieter than my 3 commercial printers. Still no permanent bed, printing to date has been on a slab of phenolic resin covered with masking tape. Still need to add LEDs to interior.
3/4" PureBond plywood. X bearing truck from 1/4" aluminum, Y and Z trucks from 11ga steel, with Openbuilds style wheels on 3/4" steel square tube. Delrin anti-backlash nut on 1/2" ACME. Minebea steppers, generic MK8 extruder, GT2 belts, and 608 idlers.
With correct wheel adjustments there is no racking. Motion and printing tests were successful using one or both of the Y axis steppers. It is quick and quiet. The massive idlers were selected due to low cost and availability after all tested 3mm and 5mm ID GT2 idlers (quite a few from different sources) were found to be based on the same junk miniature bearings.
Current STEP export in zip file. All clearances were applied in CAM and are not present in the CAD file. Z axis and case will change slightly before completion.
Note: SpaceClaim began exporting 1GB STEP and IGES files (usually 45-50MB) after their last update. Model exported as a Parasolid binary (included), converted to STEP, and checked in CAD and another modeling app.
Heads of adjustable 3/8" wheel mounts faced to height of fixed 5/16" mounts. 5mm threaded holes for wheel axles centered in the 5/16" heads and 0.5mm off center in the 3/8" heads for adjustment. Odd anti-backlash nut mount due to the odd flange. X axis rail ends welded to Y bearing trucks and bed support welded to Z trucks/bed supports.
Parts from McMaster-Carr, Lowes, HD, local fastener supply, ebay (imsrv - weird flange Z anti-backlash nut, tony34306 - name-brand NEMA steppers), and Amazon.