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MDFStrap 3D Printer made with MDF

From slow single hotend semi accurate 3D Printer to fast and accurate dual hotend 3D Printer.

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I created this printer just to see if I could in my garage, the chassis is made of MDF and some particle board, the point was to get a good build volume, acceptable quality, and average speed on a small budget then improve it from there, I have taken inspiration from various other RepRap and RepStrap printers, have made many mistakes along the way but intend to keep improving the printer over time, the printer has printed parts to improve itself, from improving the Y axis to adding dual extrusion.

The great thing is the printer is currently being used for research and ideas for improving patient outcomes when it comes to cancer treatment.

Yes the printer was also built on quite a low budget.

Licenses:

* We are using the Marlin Firmware and its associated libraries for this device.

* We are using both RepitierHost and Ultimakers Cura for slicing (This includes slic3r, and Cura engine)

* We are using 3D Slicer for CT data (DICOM)

Youtube Video for Hackaday Prize Entry

  • 5 × Nema 17 Stepper SIHONG MOTOR
  • 2 × E3D V6 Hotend Discrete Semiconductors / Diodes and Rectifiers
  • 1 × J-Head Clone v5 Used before dual extrusion was added.
  • 1 × MDF MDF!
  • 1 × Particle Board

View all 19 components

  • Gregs Wade Extruder Tension

    Terry Bates08/21/2014 at 20:59 0 comments

    I would just like to note that up until this morning we had some pretty bad issues with the E3D hotends, we pretty much had to run them 20 degrees hotter for all materials to get them to extrude properly, this was not the hotend it was our extruder springs! make sure you use the correct springs as this makes a significant difference.

    For people in NZ these ones are great (thanks Makershop)

    http://www.makershop.co.nz/hardware/ExtruderSpringSet

    As a good measure the spring coil wire thickness is about 0.81 mm, in terms testing them yourself they are quite painful to fully compress with your fingers.

  • A system design document

    Terry Bates08/18/2014 at 04:55 0 comments

    White-boarded this with one of my co-workers today, hope this covers the system design.

  • New calibration print.

    Terry Bates08/17/2014 at 21:01 0 comments

    I have created a calibration print for use in calibrating settings in the marlin firmware, this files is available on my github, its pretty basic but easy to use, there is 15cm between the cuts as shown in the image below, measure this with calipers if its incorrect you can adjust and reprint.

  • *Sigh* couldn't get Github soon enough

    Terry Bates08/17/2014 at 20:45 0 comments

    So small setback somehow I lost the configuration for dual extrusion in trying to calibrate the printer, I had just installed github on my comp but hadn't uploaded anything yet, serves me right I guess for not having it from the start, will upload the current settings I have but they are not working at the current moment.

    https://github.com/terryb8s

    Hopefully this can be fixed today!

  • Lets print some in some new materials.

    Terry Bates08/07/2014 at 04:16 0 comments

    Today I made sure we could print in 2 new materials we just got also to check quality and confirm heat settings, one is NinjaFlex and the other is HIPS, once we are happy with the qualities we will likely print something in each to CT and test the density of the objects

    HIPS - Kindly provided by Diamond Age

    http://diamondage.co.nz/

    NinjaFlex this was purchased from E3D

    http://e3d-online.com

  • Lets print some in some new materials.

    Terry Bates08/07/2014 at 04:15 0 comments

    Today I made sure we could print in 2 new materials we just got also to check quality and confirm heat settings, one is NinjaFlex and the other is HIPS, once we are happy with the qualities we will likely print something in each to CT and test the density of the objects

    HIPS - Kindly provided by Diamond Age

    http://diamondage.co.nz/

    NinjaFlex this was purchased from E3D

    http://e3d-online.com

  • Printing with PVA

    Terry Bates08/06/2014 at 20:28 0 comments

    Printing with PVA and PLA, still got some kinks to work out with the new E3D Heads, as you can see we are seeing considerable oozing when it comes to PVA and a little with PLA, created a nice little test object to print with too.

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:419854

    PVA seems to print well at 220 but maybe thats a little hot considering the oozing...

  • Dual Extrusion is working!

    Terry Bates08/05/2014 at 20:39 0 comments

    I got dual extrusion working yesterday Yus!

View all 8 project logs

  • 1
    Step 1

    Garage built, parts sourced from everywhere as long as they were on a budget!

    You start with some MDF you grabbed from the free wood pile from outside your local kitchen joinery factory.

    Get the fasteners you think you will need from your local hardware store, hopefully with your brother and laws discounts.

    Grab some server old rails from a very old server in the "room where computers go to die" at work.

    Have you boss give you his oldschool Agfa flatbed scanner.

    Buy another flatbed scanner, and some printers on trademe (Ebay).

    Order you electronics from Sainsmart with money you gained selling your Honda NS250R motorcycle! :-(

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georgefomitchef wrote 01/15/2016 at 16:58 point

Hey!

Maybe it will be interesting to you :)
Tutorial how prepare Gcode to make laser engraving using inkscape
Watch please the video instruction

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