3D ewaste printer

A site dedicated to Twichels, and things they (ok mostly me) are interested in.

Yet Another 3D printer from Scrap

12-30-14 Post
Now Updated!!

The main thing that got me back to building a 3D printer rather than just buying one (after the bitter tast of Makerbot going propritory) was the realization that I had most of the parts discribed in the instructable e-waste printer project. Of course once I looked closely, I discovered that the modern sub assemblies were much better, and make for a much easier project. I decided it would be best to spend a few $ and save the big scary stuff for a CNC router someday. besides, by then I was hooked and decided to give this project another shot.

Structure:
Any wood bracing or structure needed, is just a matter of time to customize the drawing provided it the instructable and throw it on the laser saw. That is providing it is warm enough to run the saw, but it will be soon, probably before I am ready for it. Additional structure will be provided for by the CD drive parts themselves.

Stepper motors:
Yeah, I got a few of these. The ones I plan on using were left over from when I tore apart a number of DVD drives for the DC motor / disc tray setup for use in a past project. Good thing I didn't recycle the stepper motors and pickup sleds, but put them in a box for "someday I'll use these". I also have a few NEMA17 Steppers from old Printers / scanners / faxes / copiers / thingamajigs. If I still know where the one I end us using came from, I'll post it.

Stepper Drivers and Control Electronics:
When I was first baited by the seductive headline of $60 3D printer, I thought " I own this, just sitting gathering dust. It will cost me less 'cause this is one of the expensive parts" Then I read and thought.... The Stepper driver I have can drive an honest 5A per coil (I think the add said 10A, with cavaets) I have the high tech centronics parallel interface and everything ;-) Suddenly the $38.69 shipped for a RAMPS 1.4 controller with 5 stepper drivers, and an Arduino Mega, and software available sounded like a good deal. I ordered one off ebay.

Hot End:
This is something I knew you could buy now. The last time I was building a #D printer, you had to make your own. Unfun is the polite word for that. I followed some of the links in the instructables comments and ended up opdering This one for $26. I don't have it yet, let alone know if it is a good one. I selected the 0.3mm nozzle and now know, as a beginer, I probably should have bought the 0.5mm. Either I will learn how to make it work, or I won't.

Filiment Feeder:
The catch 22 "Print out the parts for your printer" The comments came to the rescue again with a link to an assembled one. I didn't know, so I am the future owner of both a left and a right hand feed feeder $31.69 shipped. I also have 2 drive gears on the way for my 2 future feeders. $2.92 shipped.

PLA filiment:
Always the optimest, I kknow I'll need some of this. The cheap stuff is available in any color you want as long as you want pink. $13.29 for one Kilogram shipped. I found it on Ebay, The seller is out, so, no link, sorry.

Might need:
End stops, bet I can fashion these from old printer parts. We will see. Heated bed, I'll save this for last and see if it would be useful.

NOTE: links are to what I Purchased, not an endorsement (yet), nor a rejection (yet). Your milage may vary.

So $112.59 has left my bank account so far for a "nearly free, built of scrap" printer. I'm good with that if I finally get to make some 3D prints. I know that won't be the final total, but I have enough parts to keep me entertained for some time.

I started by checking out a few of the motors I had. They were left over from another project where I used the CD / DVD trays with DC motors to move them. I carefully recorded the make, model, and date of manufacture for each one and kept it with the parts I was using at the time. The steppers with the pickup shuttles were just tossed in a box.

I used an ohm meter to find which of the leads on the 4 lead motors were on which coil and soldered two pin connectors to each coil. I went with the two pin connectors as I had sone front panel LEDs and switches from junk computers that had them. <PIC> I then took the extra stepper driver (RAMPS board I bought had 5) put it on a breadboard and hooked up per the diagram on the Pololu website. I need to do some business with Pololu to show my appreciation)

The code I used for testing was example 2 from <link> The code does slowly move the motor, one step at a time, but the motor gets very hot unless you turn the trim pot on the stepper controller down to an indicated 170mA / coil (on my non-RMS Fluke 83 meter) assuming a true sine wave that would be about 242mA peak. This works, but the motor has very little torque at that power. The VMOT on the stepper board is powered by 12V from an old PC power supply (5V Vdd).
I think the thing to do is to configure the RAMPS board and test the motors from it, as was done in the instructable. I have a number of old stepper motors I can mess up if I must, but only one extra stepper board.