Dec.16, 2012
Lucastar, a 3D designer in UK, ordered a Buildabot 3D printer kit from York3Dprinters and documented his building and testing experiences on his blog. UK based company York3Dprinters offers the Buildabot 3D printers in two versions: self build kit (£999) and fully assembled 3D printer (£1,399). All Buildabot 3D printers feature a rigid aluminium chassis, T2.5 pulleys and stainless hardware.
After receiving the raw kit, the first thing Lucastar did was to polished parts with sand paper and peek metal polish. 6 hours later as you can see from the photo below these laser cut ally panels shine like mirrors.
Buildabot features easy-to-build & maintain Aluminium Chassis so it didn't take him long to assemble. Only the finishing off takes the longest.
"It has taken me ages to put the microswitches on the machine to test it. I hate wiring. Luckily, Buildabot now has molex plugs, so its just a case of plugging everything in.. The motherboard reset switch is on a flying lead. As the electronics are underneath the machine, this flying lead means that you don't have to dig around underneath there every time you want to update the firmware."
The initial printing tests were pretty good. The nude model print on the picture below is "1.75mm yellow PLA running at 130mm/s, 0.2 layers it had 10 second layer switched on. It is hollow with no support."
This is derived from Voronoi D Tower - Math Art by @Dizingof, and it is printed at 60mm/s, no heated bed yet. Total time took just over an hour.
Another print was a bearing, printed at 0.2mm layer with a speed of 36mm/s. "Total print time was 3 hours. The machine builds support around the balls to keep them from rolling around. You can easily break away the support with a pair of long nose pliers. 3 minute job. The bearing runs fine, without dropping its balls everywhere. Great!" More images are available on Lucastar's site.
(Images credit: Lucastar)
Posted in 3D Printers
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I cannot recommend this company highly enough. I contacted Aidan looking to buy a kit a few months ago and he was extremely helpful. He steered me towards a fully built model as the kits didn't have instructions and I am delighted with my printer. Aidan was always on hand to offer advice to me and I now have the printer working really well. I found Aidan to be seriously knowledgable and he could not have been more professional. So much so that I am recommending a significant project I am involved with use his products. All in all a great product and great company!!!!
Ian Coker wrote at 1/20/2016 11:55:04 AM:
Typo in post sent 1-18-16: email add wrong: should be cokerian@yahoo.co.uk if anyone wanst to discuss further (Ian Coker, PES Ltd)
Ian Coker wrote at 1/18/2016 11:49:24 AM:
I would custion anone to avoid buying a kit from this comany. This is definitely a solid-looking design and it was on the basis of the above post that I decided to buy one (March 2015). I decided to opt for the kit and in so doing I saved £400. But when it arrived I found that there were no instructions. I contacted Aidan Lucas the owner and he assured me that he would supply all the drawings and instructions as I needed them. After several weeks Aidan wrote: "...Build manual is far from finished, but this should get you started. Thanks for your patience, Ian; although we have sold quite a few fully built printers now, yours is the first kit that we have made in 2.5 years of trading!!..." However, the way it worked out was that I had to nag and chase him, sometimes for weeks. So I would receive some drawings, assemble what I could and then had to wait (here is my pinterest site showing the assembly: https://uk.pinterest.com/workingmodel/3d-printer-assembly). Eventually I was told he had personal problems, he'd had a car crash, he'd lost all his data. After 8 months I still had not received a full set of drawings and instructions. Fearing that this would go on for ever I asked for photos so that I could work it out myself. After another long wait I decided to give up and ask for my money back. I'm now taking Aidan to court. I would caution anyone to not buy a kit from this company. Aidan is a sole trader and has a full time job at a university in York. He has not the time or manpower to do this properly in my opinion. Contact me if you want further info (cokian@yahoo.co.uk)
Andrew Parker wrote at 1/3/2013 3:30:58 PM:
I also have one of these and I love it! The build quality is fantastic, and it prints really well... I have not mirror polished mine - it is anodised. This is the best Xmas present I have ever had!! (Just waiting on the graphic upgrade kits to be released now...) Totally recommended!
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