www.3ders.org

Jun 2, 2014

Tarkun Gelstronic wants to build a cheap and inexpensive 3D printer that anyone can afford. His goal was to build such a 3D Printer for less than 100 Dollar/Euro.

For keeping the price under $100 Gelstronic reused recycled PC/printer parts and stuff he has lying around in his garage. He collected 4 pcs. DVD/Blu-ray drives with stepper motors and old PC power supply for his 'new' device called 'Poor Man's 3D Printer'. He also used stepper motor nema17-like he found in an old printer for extruder. The Extruder was built of a gear of an old Hewlett Packard printer.

The only parts he bought were: 2 pcs. Stackable Motor Driver Shield L293D (6 Euro), Hotend MK7 MK8 noozle 0,4mm+thermistor+cartridge (20 Euro), PTFE Tube 4 x 2mm & 2 pcs. 1/8" BSP (6 Euro), Fan 30mm x 30mm (2 Euro) and MOSFETs, resistors, caps, LEDs, thermistor (5 Euro). He even managed to get an Arduino Board Mega 2560 on Ebay China for only 10 Euro.

Totally Gelstronic has spent 49 Euro ($67) for purchasing all the parts. Using parts that he found in his garage, like screws, nuts and washers M3,M4,M5, lots of wires, aluminium-sheet for the frame and some alu/metal profiles he managed to build up a working Poor Man's 3D Printer.

Extruder

Due to XYZ axis all make use of the DVD drive trays, the build area is limited. The small 40 x 40 x 40 mm area allows you to print very tiny objects, but the whole process is inspiring. Gelstronic even managed to get it a heated bed. The bed is heated by two parallel resistors 22R/7W/axial and reaches 110°C.

heated bed

Gelstronic has uploaded a hand drawn schematic to instructables:

Here are the features of the Poor Man's 3D Printer:

• Fused deposition modeling ABS/PLA
• Heat bed
• Use of open source firmware, modified version of Tonokip
• Free host software, Repetier-Host
• Bowden-extruder
• Max. build size 40mm x 40mm x 40mm
• Resolution 0.08mm

Here you can see the first output before/after calibration. The 10 mm cube was printed with 1.75mm ABS filament and came out at 10.06mm.

Also check out demo video below:

Source: Hackaday

 

Posted in 3D Printers

 

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Arkygeek wrote at 7/10/2015 8:25:53 PM:

I love the beer cap leg :-P LOL Super project - I think I'm going to build one!

jae wrote at 11/12/2014 7:21:08 PM:

Michael c is a Jerk.

Voltronstel wrote at 8/24/2014 7:56:57 AM:

Really interesting build. Nice camera work on the video.

michaelc wrote at 6/7/2014 5:08:56 AM:

While I applaud the ingenuity of creating a 3-D printer out of essentially consumer waste I think that the problems that you will have creating a reliable printer will far outweigh the additional costs of getting a tested design for $250-300, of which there are many. Of course if your goal is to learn to make stuff out of discarded electronics, this is the best method to do so, But I think that if you want to have a functioning and reliable printer this is not the best choice.

Proteus wrote at 6/4/2014 3:05:32 AM:

Well. I'm inspired.

Shea Street wrote at 6/2/2014 7:19:00 PM:

Been working on a similar project with guys at work donating their old hardware. So far I have not been as lucky to get good drives that didn't have a lot of slip on the screw drive. Do like the counter weight idea on this setup. Hopefully the guys at work don't think I am unoriginal now :)

Hans Fouche wrote at 6/2/2014 11:27:43 AM:

Three cheers to this man...!!!!

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